Major reasons why you should consider a career in cyber security

Cybersecurity has become critical to the fabric of any modern business. As breach after breach hits the headlines, it's clear to everyone that organizations need more professionals focused on cybersecurity. Every role within IT has a cybersecurity aspect. Focusing on security as your primary role opens up a world of options. From security operations to risk assessments to application security to investigations to compliance to educator, there as many roles within cybersecurity as lines of code running in your browser. And don't let those negative headlines get your down. For every Equifax, there are hundreds of millions of successful transactions made online. We are making progress as a profession. According to one analysis, approximately 30,000 websites are hacked every day, with a new attack occurring somewhere on the web every 39 seconds. In the United States alone, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) recorded 791,790 cybercrime-related complaints in 2022, a 69 percent increase from 2019. Losses from those complaints exceeded $4.1 billion. Businesses today must devote an increasing amount of resources—in time, money, and talent—to detecting and preventing cyberattacks. The result has been a boom in demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals. With the growing prevalence of cybersecurity, you might be wondering what the field entails - and whether it might be the right fit for the next step in your career. The need for more cybersecurity professionals becomes clear just by scanning the news: data breaches and hacking are increasingly prevalent, and most businesses are recognizing the need to protect themselves from such attacks. An increased demand for cybersecurity services means that there's never been a better time to pursue a career in this growing field. Whether you are starting your career or seeking to change direction, here are major key reasons why you should consider today’s—and tomorrow’s—hottest field in tech.

Practically unlimited growth

With an ever-expanding scope, cyber security training presents the ultimate growth potential—both in your career path and for learning opportunities. We teach security as its own discipline, but it links to all of the other IT skill sets. A good cybersecurity professional works to understand as much as possible about how technologies and organizations work. A great cybersecurity professional realizes that the learning never stops. That's a massive opportunity to stay engaged and challenged. When security teams started out, they were built from "jack-of-all-trades" types. The discipline hadn't grown enough to support specialties in forensics or application security or incident response. The current workload has forced security teams to quickly scale up and out. Opportunity is there for professionals willing to challenge themselves to take it. Whether you're looking to work your way towards a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) role or to work with brand new technologies, the only thing that will restrict your growth is your desire. That's an exciting proposition and reason enough on its own to choose a career in cybersecurity.

The Cybersecurity Skills Gap

Demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals is growing faster than the rate at which people are gaining the necessary skills. And the cybersecurity skills gap is only expected to worsen. According to research firm Frost & Sullivan, the shortage of skilled IT professionals will likely widen by an additional 1.8 million jobs by 2022. Therefore, professionals who have the skills and experience to fill these roles right now can expect more job opportunities. You may even be able to negotiate a higher salary.

The Huge Number of Cybersecurity Jobs

If you run a quick search for “cybersecurity” on any major job-seeking website, your search is likely to result in hundreds, if not thousands, of unfilled openings. Companies are creating new cybersecurity jobs faster than they can fill them. Between April 2020 and May 2022, there were nearly 500,000 cybersecurity-related job postings across the United States. Globally, Cybersecurity Ventures estimates that there may be as many as 3.5 million unfilled jobs in cybersecurity by the end of 2021. This number represents an incredible 350 percent growth in available cybersecurity jobs from 2013. So while finding the right job is never easy, it’s safe to say that professionals with cybersecurity skills have a distinct advantage in this highly competitive job market.

Wide range of variety

All of the opportunities for growth are tied to the variety of technologies and situations security professionals have to deal with. If it uses ones and zeros, it has a cybersecurity component (and some roles even extend to physical security!). Security professionals get the chance to work directly with teams on technologies and systems they never dreamed of. From robots to cars to websites serving millions and millions of users, the variety is near infinite. That's an exciting career prospect. Bored is not a word you'll be using often. This variety has an interesting offshoot: Because of the broad skill set required to properly understand modern security challenges, cybersecurity professionals come from a diverse set of backgrounds. In fact, the more variety you have in your background, the better a security professional you'll be! There’s no "right" way to train to become a cybersecurity professional.

Nearly Every Industry Needs Cybersecurity Professionals

Cybersecurity jobs are not limited to the tech sector. Every industry now finds itself in need of skilled cybersecurity professionals to protect their networks, data, and online transactions. The need for cybersecurity in some sectors—such as healthcare and finance—is obvious. But sectors that have not traditionally worried about cyber attacks now find themselves under threat. State and local governments, for example, have seen a dramatic uptick in ransomware attacks. As cars and even household appliances are now online, the Internet of Things (IoT) faces a burgeoning boom in cybersecurity requirements. Even the fitness and hospitality industries find themselves facing financial and legal repercussions from data breaches. So if you are interested in a career in tech but want to avoid the typical technology start-up, a career in cybersecurity will allow you to utilize your technical skills in almost any industry that interests you.

The job has really strong impact

That last use case—defending a pacemaker in an elderly patient—is a real one. Recently there was a massive recall of pacemakers due to a security issue. The Equifax hack impacted 145 million Americans. Cybersecurity matters. It has impacts that extend beyond the digital world and into the physical one. That's a terrifying and exciting prospect and one that highlights its importance. If you want to work on IT issues that have real-world impact, cybersecurity might be the discipline for you.

You'll Be Able to Choose an Industry That Interests You

One of the most appealing aspects of a career in cybersecurity is that the field can be applied to many different industries, from government to nonprofit to private sector. The highest demand for cybersecurity workers are in industries that manage high volumes of consumer data, such as finance, health care, and retail trade.

Cybersecurity Has Many Diverse Career Pathways

Staying one step ahead of cybercriminals requires teams of experts, with different skills and knowledge bases. Your cybersecurity journey will depend on your specific skillset, but also on your unique interests and strengths. This Cyber Career Pathways Tool by the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies (NICCS) offers one conceptualization of the cybersecurity workforce. It describes 52 distinct cybersecurity roles across five distinct skill-based communities. Cyberseek.org offers another visualization of potential cybersecurity career pathways. Starting with six “feeder roles”, you can see the skills overlap and potential progression from entry-level to advanced roles. As these tools show, many, although not all, cybersecurity career pathways begin in a technical field. A coding certification or undergraduate degree in IT is a great place to start. You may find yourself developing secure networks, systems to protect cloud-based databases, or security software to embed in the latest online app. And as you gain experience, you may find yourself fascinated with risk analysis, decide to further your education in security governance, or seek an advanced degree or technical certification. This dynamic, rapidly evolving field offers you the opportunity to shape your career to match your evolving interests.

Cybersecurity is Future-Proof

Cybersecurity is likely to continue to see extensive job growth for the foreseeable future. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, US-based jobs in information security are expected to grow 33 percent from 2020 to 2030. For reference, the average growth rate for all occupations is expected to be 7.7 percent in the upcoming decade. Unfortunately for businesses desperate to hire cybersecurity professionals, the skills gap is likely to be with us for a long time. And while other industries may be subject to the ups and downs of the economy, the need to stay ahead of cybercrime doesn’t go away during a recession. In other words, if you begin a certification or degree program in cybersecurity today, the job you have been dreaming about is going to be there when you finish. The future is a bright one for those with the skills, knowledge, and mindset to join the fight against cybercrime.

The ability to solve puzzles

Add together the growth of technology and its variety, and you start to glimpse the different types of puzzles that cybersecurity professionals can deal with. In cybersecurity we rely on some tried-and-true principles, but the tactics can change day-to-day. And there's always a new puzzle that needs to be solved. With each new wave of technology, new risks are created. It's the job of security professionals to identify, understand, and then help address these risks. That changes significantly when you're considering how to defend a website running in the cloud compared to defending a pacemaker in an elderly patient. Each situation is a unique puzzle and a new opportunity to rise to the challenge.

You Can Use Your Entire Skillset

Cybersecurity is a dynamic field, attracting people from all different types of work backgrounds. This means that within the broad field of cyber security, there's an opportunity to differentiate yourself by drawing on your skillset from prior jobs, such as information technology, administration, or accounting, while also building new cybersecurity skills.

You Can Get Better Remuneration

The average salary in a job that requires information technology (IT) skills is 50% higher than the average private-sector American job. In 2016, the median pay for a cybersecurity job was $92,600 per year, as compared to a median annual wage of $37,040 for all workers.

You'll Be a Part of an Exciting, Challenging Field

The internet touches almost all aspects of daily life. In our digital age, cybersecurity plays an essential role in ensuring online safety, as well as the safety of the essential systems that support our daily lives, including electricity, transportation, and financial institutions. As a cyber security professional, you'll be working daily to keep critical infrastructure secure, and will constantly be facing new, engaging challenges.

Start learning, keep learning

Cybersecurity has the two key logistical advantages for a strong career: Low to no unemployment and solid compensation. Plus, if you choose this path, you'll always have room to grow. You'll continually be learning new skills and working to understand new technologies. New challenges will keep popping up and you'll be exposed to a multitude of new people, situations, and opportunities. You'll never be bored as new puzzles need to be solved, and you can always be proud because your work will have a positive impact on the digital and physical world. Make no mistake. The variety, growth opportunities, puzzles, and impact of cybersecurity add up to an exciting career. But if you're expecting a career more in line with Hollywood’s presentation of security professionals...think again. The vast majority of roles in cybersecurity don't require you to jet around the world dodging bullets or getting scan results in milliseconds or being able to immediately identify malicious code by its red color (<sarcasm>thanks for that, CSI: Cyber</sarcasm>). Of course, that doesn't mean that these roles aren't rewarding. They are. They just might not be glamorous.