Cyberseek

To help close the cybersecurity skills gap, CyberSeek provides detailed, actionable data about supply and demand in the cybersecurity job market.

Interactive Map

A heat map of cybersecurity supply and demand

Career Pathway

An interactive career pathway showing common roles within cybersecurity and transition opportunities between them

About this tool

Cybersecurity workers protect our most important and private information, from bank accounts to sensitive military communications. However, there is a dangerous shortage of cybersecurity workers in the United States that puts our digital privacy and infrastructure at risk.

From September 2023 through August 2024, there were only 83 cybersecurity workers available for every 100 cybersecurity jobs demanded by employers.

There were 457,433 openings this year requesting cybersecurity-related skills, and employers are struggling to find workers who possess them. On average, cybersecurity roles take 21% longer to fill than other IT jobs.

Who is this tool for?

CyberSeek can support local employers, educators, guidance and career counselors, students, current workers, policy makers, and other stakeholders as they answer the following questions:

Employers

How large is the cybersecurity workforce in my region? How does that compare to other locations?
How much does it cost to hire cybersecurity workers in my region?
How hard will it be to fill cybersecurity positions in my region? Do I need to source cybersecurity workers from other regions?

Educators & Career Counselors

Should I offer a cybersecurity training program for my students?
What skills should we teach students to prepare them for careers in cybersecurity? What courses should they take?
What education levels do employers require for cybersecurity workers in my community?
What entry-level jobs can students target to begin their careers in cybersecurity?
What cybersecurity certifications are most in demand in my community? Are there enough certification holders to meet demand? Should I prepare students for these certifications?

Students

Is there strong demand for cybersecurity jobs in my region?
What skills and educational credentials do I need to enter a career in cybersecurity?
How much can I make if I work in cybersecurity?

Job Seekers & Current Workers

How in-demand are cybersecurity jobs in my community?
What roles can I target to start my career in cybersecurity?
How can I transition between cybersecurity roles and advance my career?

Policy Makers

How large is the cybersecurity workforce in my community? How does that compare to other locations?
How severe is the workforce shortage in my community?
What types of cybersecurity jobs are most demanded in my community?

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Project partners

Lightcast is the world’s leading authority on job skills, workforce talent, and labor market dynamics, providing expertise that empowers businesses, education providers, and governments to find the skills and talent they need and enables workers to unlock new career opportunities.

With engineers and data specialists continually collecting and analyzing data from thousands of job boards, company websites, online resumes, employee profiles, and traditional government sources, the company produces the most comprehensive, up-to-date picture of the labor market available.

Lightcast market research, analytical software, and data expertise is used by companies across the globe to better understand their own workforce and identify skilled and diverse talent for future growth. The company also guides colleges and universities in connecting their programs to the needs of the local labor market, and advises government entities in creating more effective programs for economic prosperity.

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and Moscow, Idaho, Lightcast is active in more than 30 countries and has offices in the United Kingdom, Italy, New Zealand, and India. The company is backed by global private equity leader KKR.

For more information, visit lightcast.io

The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) is a leading voice and advocate for the global information technology ecosystem and the tech professionals who design, implement, manage, and safeguard the technology that powers the world’s economy.

CompTIA is the world’s leading vendor-neutral IT certifying body with nearly 2.7 million certifications earned through rigorous, performance-based exams. CompTIA sets the standard for preparing entry-level candidates through expert-level professionals to succeed at all stages of their career in technology. Through CompTIA’s philanthropic arm, CompTIA develops innovative on-ramps and career pathways to expand opportunities to populations that traditionally have been under-represented in the information technology workforce.

For more information, visit comptia.org

NICE, led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is a partnership between government, academia, and the private sector focused on cybersecurity education, training, and workforce development.

The mission of NICE is to energize and promote a robust network and an integrated ecosystem of cybersecurity education, training, and workforce development. NICE fulfills this mission by coordinating with government, academic, and industry partners to build on existing successful programs, facilitate change and innovation, and bring leadership and vision to increase the number of skilled cybersecurity professionals helping to keep our Nation secure.

For more information, visit nist.gov/nice

What is cybersecurity?

Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear about cybersecurity. It may be a major breach of a corporate network that potentially affects thousands of customers and costs billions of dollars, or it may be the mundane annoyance of spam email that may be riskier than meets the eye.

Before exploring the many facets of the cybersecurity landscape presented by CyberSeek, it may be helpful to start with a quick introduction to the topic of cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity commonly refers to the tools and techniques used to protect technology devices, the data they contain, and the functions they perform from people who want to steal, damage or misuse them. This includes normal features of modern life that you deal with every day, like the passwords that protect your phone, your computer and your various online accounts, as well as the practices and defenses to keep everything safe.

Why is cybersecurity such an important topic today?
What do cybersecurity terms such as hacker, malware, vulnerability or phishing mean?
What are the basic concepts of how cybersecurity works in the real world?

For background on these and many more questions surrounding the field of cybersecurity, please visit the ‘what is cybersecurity page’ of the Future of Tech website.

Why consider a career in cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is a career field on the upswing—and that’s putting it mildly. Employer demand for cyber professionals is consistently high as portrayed by CyberSeek, and the outlook over the next decade is extremely promising according to projections by the US Bureau of Labor of Statistics.

Entering the field of cybersecurity may seem daunting, but rest assured, there are many pathways and on-ramps to getting started. There are a wide range of positions within cybersecurity spanning every industry sector, which allow candidates to match their skills and experience to the position that best suits them.

People who work in cybersecurity tend to have good instincts and attention to detail. Communication skills and problem solving are vital as well. Obviously technology plays a key part in cybersecurity, but that is only one facet of many job roles.

For background on working in the field of cybersecurity, please visit the ‘careers in cybersecurity’ page of the Future of Tech website.

Methodology

The data analysis and aggregation powering Cyberseek is a collaboration between Lightcast, NICE, and CompTIA. Lightcast’s artificial intelligence technology analyzes hundreds of millions of job postings and real-life career transitions to provide insight into labor market patterns. Lightcast used a combination of skill and tool proficiencies, occupations, job titles, and certifications found in job postings to define the broader Cybersecurity landscape. Thanks goes to CompTIA, GIAC, IAPP, (ISC)² and ISACA for sharing the supply of certification holders for CyberSeek.

Gathering insights into high-potential career progression for workers, Lightcast constructed career pathways out of the jobs core to the cybersecurity landscape. To calculate the NICE workrole category distribution, we reviewed the tasks and KSAs associated with each work role and mapped them to our closest corresponding skills, job titles, and certifications, customizing a matching NICE workrole for each job posting.

Supply estimations factor in all individuals relevant to the cybersecurity workforce. This includes those employed in the field plus those with relevant skills and/or recent experience who are considered to be actively searching on the job market. To derive such supply estimations, we leverage a combination of government employment data, historic cybersecurity job openings and social profile data.

Demand estimations account for the flow of individuals in, out and through the field of cybersecurity and is therefore quantified not only by employment and job openings, but also an estimation of the number of employee separations. To derive such demand estimations, we leverage a combination of government employment data, cybersecurity job openings and social profile data.

We calculated the location quotient by looking at the concentration of cybersecurity job postings compared to other job postings—and compared that to the national average. Looking at this quotient, as well as the cybersecurity supply/demand ratio, workers and employers can find where cybersecurity jobs are in demand and in supply (or in very low supply).

Heatmap data is for the 12-month period September 2023 through August 2024. Career pathway data is for the last 12 months from today's date.

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