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350 percent growth in open cybersecurity positions from 2013 to 2021.
The New York Times reports that a stunning statistic is reverberating in cybersecurity: Cybersecurity Ventures’ prediction that there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs globally by 2021, up from one million positions in 2014.
The cyber employment figure has been corroborated by hundreds of media outlets, including the world’s largest, as well as industry associations, universities, governments, vendors, recruitment firms, and security experts, since our original report was published in May 2017.
Soon after our employment data was released, the World Economic Forum (WEF) republished an article with permission from Knowledge@Wharton, the online research and business analysis journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, which shared our report, and observed “nowhere is the workforce-skills gap more pronounced than in cybersecurity.”
Earlier this year, the Harvard Business Review shared our report, and summed up the plight: “The majority of chief information security officers around the world are worried about the cybersecurity skills gap, with 58 percent of CISOs believing the problem of not having an expert cyber staff will worsen.”
Cybersecurity Ventures arrived at our original estimation of unfilled positions after reviewing and synthesizing dozens of employment figures from the media, analysts, job boards, vendors, governments, and organizations globally. In 2019, we’ve conducted similar research, and we stand firmly behind the two-and-a-half-year-old prediction.
Over the eight-year period tracked, the number of unfilled cybersecurity jobs is expected to grow by 350 percent, from one million positions in 2013 to 3.5 million in 2021. And of the candidates who are applying for these positions, fewer than one in four are even qualified, according to the MIT Technology Review.
Despite industry-wide efforts to reduce the skills gap, the open cybersecurity headcount in 2021 will be enough to fill 50 NFL stadiums. A Forbes Technology Council post states that the number would be in the top 100 for the size of work populations of countries worldwide — not just industries.
Every IT position is also a cybersecurity position now. Every IT worker, every technology worker, needs to be involved with protecting and defending apps, data, devices, infrastructure, and people.
“It’s a full-on war for cybertalent” one industry veteran who specializes in recruiting and placing senior-level information security executives told the Los Angeles Times.