According to a paper titled “The People of Cybersecurity” by professional recruiting services company Michael Page India, the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a significant manpower shortage in the cybersecurity industry.
As per the paper, there is now a 43% talent deficit in the cybersecurity industry, with the most in-demand skills in the Asia Pacific region being those related to threat intelligence, cloud security risk management, application development security, and data privacy and security. By 2025, there will likely be over 1.5 million employment openings in the sector in India.
“As companies continue emphasizing cybersecurity and heightened employee awareness, the focus on cybersecurity has increased more than ever. However, there seems to be a huge supply-demand gap, this has led to an increase in hiring for available positions on permanent or contractual basis,” said Varsha Barooah, Director of Michael Page India.
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“The demand for roles such as Security Engineers, Cybersecurity Analysts and Cybersecurity Engineers is on the rise. India is expected to have over 1.5 million unfulfilled job vacancies in cybersecurity by 2025. The second highest in the APAC Region after China,” she added.
The pandemic and rising cybercrime serve to emphasize the need for experts to fill the gap. According to the research, Asia Pacific saw a 600% increase in cybercrime. India has experienced a substantial proportion of cyberattacks worldwide. Over the past year, numerous breaches have been reported, prompting businesses in the banking, financial services, and telecommunications sectors to invest in security.
Several businesses are updating their internal capabilities to handle this danger better, hiring professionals to manage their information security needs, or contacting cybersecurity organizations as service providers because they now lack the means to do so, said the paper.
