The Cyber-Security Skills Gap
Why companies should stop whining and start training. How this skills gap affects the cyber-security industry.
Did you know that there are about 3.9 million vacant jobs, while the number of unemployed population hasn't gone down in 2015 compared to 2014? On the opposite: it reached 197,1 millions, 1 million more.
Indeed, there was an increase in the number of those seeking a job in 2015, but this mainly took place in developing and emerging countries. Unfortunately, the situation is not so bright in some countries in Latin America, Asia and a few Arab States. In fact, it worsened.
Pointing the finger
But let’s get back to those 3.9 million vacant jobs. Do you think the economic crisis and fluctuations are to blame? Partially. Another important contributor to this number is the so called “Skills Gap”. This basically means employers are having a hard time finding good employees. And by good I don’t mean with n years of experience, but people who have at least a basic interest and training in that domain.
Who is responsible for this? Are the companies? Should we blame their parents? The government and the education system? It’s understandable that companies can’t find skilled employees for new domains such as IT, but what about the good old manufacturing factories? Since the shop classes are being slowly removed from the education system, a lot of kids can’t even read a ruler or know what a lather is, much less how to work one.
Young people aren't exactly motivated, either. As years pass, their expectations are increasing while what they are able of bringing to the table is decreasing.
Truth be told, whining about the “skills gap” is really not helpful for anyone. Instead, companies should face their partial guilt on creating it, and start training competent professionals.
There indeed are a lot of issues with finding employees for specific jobs in specific industries, but really, the solution is in these companies’ hands: create internal training programmes, offer competitive wages and get involved in the community colleges’ programmes.
In addition to these, companies should lower their expectations when it comes to hiring. As they receive more application letters, they increase the desired skills set more, and it’s like trying to find a white unicorn. It may be out there in the pile of application letters, but it may as well not be. Companies will still be searching for it.
Cyber-security and the skills gap
Even though there are over one million cyber-security job openings available globally, there’s a shortage in skilled professionals and it is estimated to continue growing rapidly in 2016, placing both private and public sector organisations at risk, according to a survey conducted by Cybrary.
As organisations and businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the cyber-threats out there and the number of cyber-attacks are increasing due to the high value of personal data, it’s only natural that global demand for security experts increases also.
This demand for security professionals is forecast to exceed the supply by a third before the end of the decade, companies being faced with one of the largest human capital shortages in the world.
(ISC)2 has predicted that companies in the public and private sector will be needing 6 million security professionals by 2019, but only 4.5 million will meet the necessary application conditions.
Don’t get me wrong, this increasing cyber-threats awareness and demand for skilled security professionals doesn't only have a downside to it. It will also provide huge research and education opportunities. This need for cyber-security will create the need to mentor more students in the concepts and technologies for network security, which will be highly significant for education institutions. Therefore, the academic environment has a unique chance to act as a motor for change.
Demand for security professionals in the Americas is increasing by 12% annually, with 164,000 jobs forecast in the next year alone.
In Frost&Sullivan’s 2015 Information Security Workforce Study, 2 in 3 security professionals felt that there were too few security professionals out there, while 1 in 50 said there are too many information security workers.
When asked which job positions or categories within their organisation were not being filled, 46% of security professionals placed the Security analyst job title on the first position. The rest of the top five most in demand positions was composed of Security auditor (32%), Security architect (32%), Forensic analyst (30%) and Incident handler (28%)
A perfect storm is enveloping the information security workforce with the resulting wake being a widening gap between the number of security professionals needed and the actual number available to be hired. Unfortunately, reducing this gap will be fraught with challenges as the factors contributing to both the growing need and constrained hiring are numerous and, in many ways, structural. Therefore, the remedy is neither a silver bullet nor immediate. (source)
Now is the perfect time for the academic environment and the security industry to come together and nurture the spirit of collaborative efforts in creating a fresh and ambitious generation of information and network security professionals. Only by making this domain more attractive to the young generation and creating a rewarding career path for them, will we be able to bridge this cyber-security skills gap.
The number of companies who are on a mission to protect information, make authentication more safe and provide a much needed layer of security for transaction authorisation are increasing, and among them, there’s UNLOQ. It embodies all these cyber-security solutions, combined with a customisable experience.
