As of March 2020, cybersecurity threats have increased more than 220% and, as a result, so has the demand for security professionals. Based off of industry experience and research from hundreds of reports and articles, these are the industries that we see generating the highest hiring demand from a cybersecurity job outlook.
Since March, 70% of organizations have increased their spending on Cybersecurity to protect against cloud high-jacking, data theft, mobile malware, Wi-Fi, API, and endpoint vulnerabilities. With more breaches than ever before, there are 62% more security professionals needed in the US than exist in the current talent pool.
Based on trends we've been seeing in the market nationally and locally, we have seen a 134% increase as far as the outlook of cybersecurity jobs, across a variety of roles, including Risk Management, Network and Infrastructure, Compliance, Application Security and more. Read our guide below for more information on the top skillsets needed and the top industries hiring during the current tech talent shortage.
These are the leading industries hiring for cybersecurity professionals amid today's global challenges.
Cybersecurity Job Outlook: 3 Highest Demand Industries in 2020
1. Healthcare
Cybersecurity attacks in healthcare have increased by 150% since March of 2020, and a coalition was formed to provide defensive tools to industry companies and hospitals as a result. Data breaches cost the health care industry approximately $5.6 billion every year, according to Becker’s Hospital Review.
So far in 2020, no less than 28 healthcare data breaches have been reported. Hospitals and their patients are most at risk because of the increased level of vulnerability that exposes them to cyber attackers due to antiquated patient data collection and storing practices. Additionally, the spike in fear-based cybercrime around today's health crisis makes hospital's data even more vulnerable.
2. Retail & E-Commerce
Retail, finance and other consumer-based industries are especially focused on shoring up their defenses as a staggering 85,000 stores appeared online in the three months to July 2020. This is all in addition to the CCPA and compliance laws going into effect this year amid the pandemic challenges.
With retail employees and customers working from home, email phishing attacks are the primary weapon, since home WiFi networks do not have the same system defenses as businesses. Home networks lack proper firewalls, anomaly detection monitoring, and in some cases, even VPNs. The spike in e-commerce traffic has caused companies to quickly pivot their online shopping solutions, often skipping key security steps along the way for sake of time and efficiency. The outlook for Cybersecurity engineer jobs is high demand as business leaders strive to meet the increased volume of online customers.
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3. Cloud Computing & Infrastructure
Additionally, the cloud computing and infrastructure industry has an immediate need to implement preventative measures against this increased number of cyberattacks. These industries are currently prioritizing efforts around creating model risk assessments and implementing security capabilities to include key management, encryption, de-anonymization, data masking, tokenization, and more. Because of increased phishing attacks, companies are also working to automate cyberattack detection - creating even more cybersecurity jobs for this outlook of 2020 and beyond.
These vulnerabilities were overlooked by many companies and leaders, across several industries, that are now scrambling to hire experts to secure their remote workforce.
MANY COMPANIES ARE HIRING SECURITY PROFESSIONALS TO:- Safeguard their migration to cloud servers
- Protect their network infrastructure
- Employ authentication policies
- Apply security standards across their development process, end-to-end
- Employ patch management strategies
- Conduct and maintain threat monitoring and zero trust networking.
The cybersecurity job outlook might look dire in terms of talent available, but for candidates, it's a 0% unemployment area. If you’re a security professional seeking new opportunities, visit our job board to apply to open roles near you. If you're a hiring manager, contact a local recruiting consultant here. We have worked with Security professionals and hiring leaders for more than 30 years, helping both organizations and job-seekers meet their needs and goals - even during the biggest talent shortages the tech industry has seen.
Look around our website for information and a full outlook on cybersecurity jobs, recruitment, tech trends, salaries, and more.
