Research: the global cybersecurity workforce reached 4.7M in 2022 and still had a 3.4M shortage; Statista says the average salary ranged from $120K to $150K
Nick Huber / Financial Times :
Context & Ripple Effects
The reported 3.4M shortfall shows the cyber talent gap remains entrenched: related coverage had already identified a 3.1M-person need to close the gap in 2020. The new workforce and salary figures put a scale and price on a constraint that has persisted through continued security-market growth.
Employers were already responding to ransomware risk with higher pay and greater autonomy for security hires. This research indicates that competition for qualified practitioners is not easing simply because the overall workforce has grown.
First-order effects
- Cybersecurity employers face a larger pool of practitioners but still a substantial unmet hiring need, sustaining pressure on recruiting, retention and compensation.
- Workers with relevant cybersecurity skills retain strong bargaining power, reflected in Statista’s reported $120K–$150K average-salary range.
Second-order effects
- Organizations unable to fill roles are likely to revisit job requirements and rely more heavily on tooling and automation, an approach previously identified as a response to the security skills gap.
- Security vendors can position products that reduce manual operational work more prominently, while customers must weigh software spending against the cost and scarcity of in-house staff.
Third-order effects
- If shortages persist alongside workforce growth, cybersecurity teams may become more segmented between scarce specialist roles and technology-assisted operational roles rather than expanding uniformly.
- The pattern reinforces cybersecurity talent as a capacity constraint on the broader security market, making training pathways and productivity-enhancing automation more consequential competitive levers.
The trend: Cybersecurity is shifting toward a labor-constrained operating model in which pay, hiring flexibility and automation compete as ways to secure scarce expertise.