INTRODUCTION

The 2021 (ISC)² Cybersecurity Workforce Study collected survey data from a record 4,753 cybersecurity professionals working with small, medium and large organizations throughout North America, Europe, Latin America (LATAM) and Asia-Pacific (APAC).
Our findings shed new light on how the lingering effects of the pandemic and the accelerated evolution of the threat landscape impact organizations’ security practices and the role cybersecurity professionals play in defending our critical assets.
For the third year running, the study provides two critical measures of the cybersecurity profession—the Cybersecurity Workforce Estimate and the Cybersecurity Workforce Gap.
The Cybersecurity Workforce Estimate presents an appraisal of the available pool of cybersecurity professionals worldwide. For 2021, our study estimates there are 4.19 million cybersecurity professionals worldwide, which is an increase of more than 700,000 compared to last year.
By contrast, the Cybersecurity Workforce Gap is the number of additional professionals that organizations need to adequately defend their critical assets. For the second consecutive year, the Cybersecurity Workforce Gap has decreased, down to 2.72 million compared to 3.12 million last year.
Together, the Cybersecurity Workforce Estimate and Cybersecurity Workforce Gap suggest the global cybersecurity workforce needs to grow 65% to effectively defend organizations’ critical assets.
This report will guide you through the key findings of this year’s research, including what the gap means in practice for professionals, what their organizations are doing to compensate for the lack of skilled personnel, in what disciplines they lack the most talent, and what organizations are likely to do to recruit and retain workers in the coming years. We also explore how professionals are ensuring they keep their skills current, what traits they value most in new entrants to the field, their morale during the pandemic,
and what the adoption of work-from-home (WFH) or work-from-anywhere (WFA) means for them.