The Cyberseek Heat Map: Insights into America’s Cybersecurity Job Landscape

Cybersecurity jobs button

I love research, and I love statistics as long – as I feel they are from reputable sources. I have talked about some of my favorite sites from Hackmageddon to Statista to lists of all of the advisory boards in the United States government.

Cyberseeek Heat Map Highlights

However, a new source to check out is the Cyberseek Heat Map. This resource provides data on the current state of cybersecurity job opportunities across the country. Here are the top highlights.

  • The total employed cybersecurity workforce currently in this country is roughly 1.1 million
  • The total cybersecurity job openings are 663,000 as of April of this year
  • The total supply/demand ratio is 69%, that is for every seven people that are qualified there are 10 jobs to fill
  • In Virgina, Texas, and California alone there are approximately 180,000 job openings
  • The DC area to include Virginia has over 74,000 open cybersecurity jobs
  • My state, little ol’ Kansas, has over 7,000 job vacancies
  • The map shows the Federal government with 14,100 current cybersecurity employees but it does not show data on openings
  • While it is hard to tell since the categories overlap, network defense appears to have the most jobs available, followed by security architecture, management and governance, and threat intelligence. Investigations also have a substantial number of open jobs according to Cyberseek.
  • Finally, Security+ seems to be the leader in both certifications held and what employers request when reviewing applicants. However, the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) credential is a solid second. It appears many employers will also hire without certifications and pay for them once the employee is on board.

cybersecurity jobs are plentiful

In case you think this data is directly from one company trying to shill their services, it actually is a project supported by the National Institute of Cybersecurity and Education (NICE) a program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Comptia may have some influence on the project, based on the website but is not responsible for data collection on job openings in the field. The bottom line is, cyber jobs are plentiful and ready to be filled.

 

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Joe Jabara, JD, is the Director, of the Hub, For Cyber Education and Awareness, Wichita State University. He also serves as an adjunct faculty at two other universities teaching Intelligence and Cyber Law. Prior to his current job, he served 30 years in the Air Force, Air Force Reserve, and Kansas Air National Guard. His last ten years were spent in command/leadership positions, the bulk of which were at the 184th Intelligence Wing as Vice Commander.