Cyber UK's quickest growing tech field, but skills gap remains

Four years on from an ill-timed NCSC advertisement encouraging people to consider retraining in cyber security, security appears to be the fastest growing technology field in the UK, with the number of people in security roles more than doubling over the past three years, according to a new report produced by security consultancy Socura, titled Their next job was in cyber.

The infamous ad featured young ballet dancer with the line “Fatima’s next job could be in cyber. She just doesn’t know it yet”.  It prompted derision in 2020 and was described as crass by the then culture secretary Oliver Dowden, coming at a time when the UK’s cultural sector was struggling to recover from the damage sustained during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic

Based on an analysis of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) annual population survey data, Socura said that the number of cyber pros in the country went from 28,500 in December 2021 to 65,000 by March of this year.

However, the topline statistic masks the fact that there is still a massive shortage of security professionals in the UK, and digging deeper into the statistics, the cyber workforce is becoming less diverse, with the proportion of women in the sector falling from 23.8% in December 2021 to 17.5% in March 2024.

And when taken against IT professions, security pros are still thin on the ground compared to programmers and software developers, of whom there are around 560,000, IT managers, numbering about 240,000, and IT business analysts, architects and system designers, numbering approximately 195,000.

Socura CEO Andy Kays said there were clearly not yet enough security workers to tackle the growing threat levels faced by UK organisations, with the data showing one security pro for every 86 companies.

“Cyber security may be the fastest growing IT occupation in the UK but the skills shortage in the industry remains a concern,” said Kays. “Many businesses simply do not have the specialists they need to defend against cyber attacks.  

“To fix this problem at a national level, we need more initiatives like the NCSC-backed Academic Centres of Excellence and ways to reach even younger people so that they can discover technology in schools. For organisations struggling to recruit cybersecurity experts, finding a trusted managed services partner to bolster capabilities and ease the load remains vital to bridging the gap.” 

Kathryn Jones, head of Cardiff University’s Computer Science and Informatics School, added: “Attracting more workers, particularly women, into cyber remains a key challenge for the industry

“However, gender imbalance and the low representation of women is a wider issue in the tech sector, not only cyber security. The number of women enrolled on computer science and software engineering courses, for example, is typically also low.  

“Cyber security is an exciting and varied career choice but more initiatives like the NCSC’s Cyber First Girls competition are needed to raise awareness,” said Jones.