What Skills Do Cyber Security Professionals Need?

TL;DR

This study identifies key skills, role-specific technical demands, and important programming languages for cybersecurity professionals by analyzing thousands of job ads and online posts, providing guidance for education and career development.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive analysis of skill requirements and programming language importance for cybersecurity roles, based on large-scale data from job postings and online discussions.

Findings

Communication and project management are the top soft skills.

Technical skill demand varies significantly across roles.

Java is the most prevalent programming language in cybersecurity.

Abstract

Purpose: The increasing number of cyber-attacks has elevated the importance of cybersecurity for organizations. This has also increased the demand for professionals with the necessary skills to protect these organizations. As a result, many individuals are looking to enter the field of cybersecurity. However, there is a lack of clear understanding of the skills required for a successful career in this field. In this paper, we identify the skills required for cybersecurity professionals. We also determine how the demand for cyber skills relates to various cyber roles such as security analyst and security architect. Furthermore, we identify the programming languages that are important for cybersecurity professionals. Design/Methodology: For this study, we have collected and analyzed data from 12,161 job ads and 49,002 Stack Overflow posts. By examining this, we identified patterns and trends related to skill requirements, role-specific demands, and programming languages in cybersecurity. Findings: Our results reveal that (i) communication skills and project management skills are the most important soft skills, (ii) as compared to soft skills, the demand for technical skills varies more across various cyber roles, and (iii) Java is the most commonly used programming language. Originality: Our findings serve as a guideline for individuals aiming to get into the field of cybersecurity. Moreover, our findings are useful in terms of informing educational institutes to teach the correct set of skills to students doing degrees in cybersecurity.