The Cyber Skills Shortage Is Not Getting Any Better
As digital transformation drives the importance of cyber security to a company’s value proposition, cyber security managers continue to face big challenges in finding people with the right skills.
According to a recent survey conducted by cyber security recruitment firm Stott amd May, in conjunction with Forgepoint Capital, internal skills continue to represent the single most significant barrier to strategy execution for 43% of cyber security leaders. Other key hurdles included budget (35%), technology (13%), and board-level buy-in (9%).
The research, entitled ‘Cyber Security in Focus’, provides insight into the thoughts and core priorities of a snapshot cohort of 55 security leaders and examined critical themes including the skills shortage, inhibitors to strategy execution as well as the business perception of cyber security functions. Respondents come from Stott and May’s professional network across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and North America. The roles surveyed included Cyber Security Directors, Security Operations Directors, and VPs of Product Security, with 36% of the sample originating directly from the CISO community.
Highlights from the survey include:
- Security leaders continue to experience challenges sourcing experienced talent, with 73% highlighting it as an area of concern. Time-to-hire also remains a potent issue. 35% pointed to positions being left unfilled after a 12-week period.
- Further evolution surrounding the working pattern of security professionals looks likely, with 73% of security leaders favoring a hybrid approach and an additional 22% going fully remote.
- The significance of cyber security is becoming even more broadly recognized internally, as 80% of security leaders believe their business perceives the function as a ‘strategic priority’ – up from 54% last year.
- 100% of the sample of cyber security leaders now either agree (38%) or strongly agree (62%) that their business feels the function plays a role in improving the overall value proposition to customers.
- Concern is growing among 51% of respondents that cyber security investment is not keeping pace with the drive towards digital business.
- 54% of hiring managers believe that salaries have increased more than 11% year on year, further highlighting the demand for talent.
The challenges posed by digital transformation and the sheer pace of agile software development are also culminating in the emergence of a new type of CISO: the engineering-centric CISO.
“A lot of digital transformation is inherently going to be driven by engineering and finding a CISO that can empower developers with knowledge, tooling, and experience will enable outcomes to be achieved faster and more securely.” according to William Lin of Forgepoint Capital,
Shifting security into the product development lifecycle is a central issue for CISOs. James Dolph, CISO at Guidewire Software commented “... security is not and cannot be viewed as an add-on, it is not optional and should be part of the company’s value proposition.”
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