Numbers | Supply of IT Security Skills Doesn't Meet Demand

Employees, job candidates lack adequate expertise in security, firewalls and data privacy, according to survey of IT hiring managers

Good news for job-hunters with top-notch information security skills: A study examining trends in worldwide IT skills found a large gap between the IT security skills that organizations need, and the actual skills most workers bring to the job. The report was conducted by The Center for Strategy Research, a market research firm based in Boston, and commissioned by CompTIA, an IT trade association.

In nine countries that have established IT industries (Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, the United States and the United Kingdom), 73 percent of respondents from organizations said security, firewalls and data privacy are the skills they value most today. Yet only 57 percent said their IT employees have reached a level of proficiency with such skills.

In countries where strong IT industries are still developing (China, India, Poland, Russia, and South Africa), 76 percent identified security as the most valuable skill to their organization. Again, only 57 percent of organizations that said their current staff meets that demand.

However, the study also found that organizations believe they can improve workers' IT skills through external employee training (42 percent), providing incentives and rewards (41 percent) and employee certification (36 percent).