Half of UK businesses have a cybersecurity skills gap that they are struggling to fill amid a challenging labour market, government figures show.
The report, published by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), found that there were more than 160,000 cybersecurity job postings in the last year – a 30% increase on the previous period.
Approximately half of businesses do not have staff to carry out basic cybersecurity tasks such as configuring firewalls or detecting and removing malware.
Meanwhile, around a third of businesses lack people with the cyber skills to manage more advanced tasks such as conducting forensic analysis of security breaches.
It comes as a separate report from IBM puts the average cost of a data breach at £3.4m for UK businesses, underscoring the high costs for companies that get cybersecurity wrong.
The DSIT report highlighted that just 17% of the cyber workforce is female, down from 22% in the previous year.
In all, the UK requires an additional 11,200 people with suitable cyber skills to meet the demands of the market, the report estimates.
“The fact there are still so many unfilled vacancies points to the need for even more to be done in awareness and education programmes to encourage new recruits,” Paul Brucciani, cybersecurity advisor at WithSecure, told UKTN.
“Recruiters need to be more imaginative and think laterally. But the shortfall also highlights the importance of retention. Organisations need to focus on a ‘grow your own’ workforce strategy and nurture talent from within their own company.”
The digital skills gap across all sectors has been a perennial problem for the UK’s tech sector. A survey last year found that 81% of UK managing directors said a lack of digital skills is negatively affecting their company.