Shortage of 350,000 Cybersecurity Professionals by 2022

According to a new study by Frost & Sullivan, Europe faces a 350,000 shortage of cybersecurity professionals by 2022, yet companies are focusing more on hiring staff with existing experience. The study urged firms to invest in training and broadening their hiring practices to counter the expected shortage.

Narrowing hiring practices

Frost & Sullivan found out that 48 respondents blamed the lack of skills due to unavailability of qualified skills, but the recruiting managers focused more on hiring skilled labour through conventional channels like prioritising on individuals who already have the required skills and their own human resources departments and professional networks. Frost & Sullivan recommends that if companies need to prepare themselves for the looming shortage of skilled labour, then they should broaden their hiring criteria. The hiring will be made possible by recruiting young talents and training them to acquire the required skills before 2022. 

Ambitious recruitment plans 

The research conducted found that firms were increasingly concerned about various threats, with ransomware and data breaches topping the list. 70 percentage of recruiting managers across the globe said they were focusing on increasing the IT security personnel this year, 2017. The most sought-after positions were safety and operations management with a shortage of 62 percent, while at 58 percent were incident and threat management. 

Expand the talent pool

Frost & Sullivan found that many companies’ requirements in the workforce were not in line with the employees’ priorities. There is, therefore, a need for firms to communicate with the employees and let them know which skills should be top priority in the job description. While employees prioritised on technical skills like security and computing, hiring managers, on the other hand, focused more on analytical and communication skills. There is, therefore, a need for employees to be made aware of the skills that companies are looking for during their training, while the hiring managers should not be very strict on skills that are not a top priority in cybersecurity.