Cybersecurity industry needs additional 1,000 workers a year to meet demand - report

Ireland’s cyber security sector needs an additional 1,000 workers a year amid a surge in demand for services, a new report has found.

The cybersecurity industry could support up to 17,000 high-value jobs by 2030, up from 7,300 currently, the State of the Cyber Security Sector in Ireland 2022 found.

The report said there were more than 6,700 unique job postings for cyber security professionals in Ireland last year, more than treble the demand from 2019.

“This report provides clear evidence of the increasing demand for cyber security talent in Ireland, outlining how there were three times as many job postings in 2022 compared to 2019,” Cyber Ireland’s Eoin Byrne, said.

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“It demonstrates the benefits of supporting this sector’s growth, including regional employment growth, high value jobs and the opportunity to position Ireland as a cyber security leader internationally.”

Companies are facing increasingly sophisticated threats from bad actors online, and the cost of dealing with data breaches is rising, according to research published earlier this year. Figures from IBM published in July found the average cost of a data breach to organisations hit an all time high in 2023, with detection and escalation costs up 42 per cent as breach investigations became increasingly complex.

If the growth rate in the cybersecurity meets expectations, Cyber Ireland says the it could support up to €2.5 billion in annual Gross Value Added to the Irish economy per annum by 2030.

The organisation said 83 per cent of businesses in Ireland expect to grow their cyber security team over the next 12 months, with more than half predicting a growth rate of 25 per cent or higher.

The report will help Cyber Ireland to assess the demands of the labour market and how it can help meet the industry’s needs. It was published at CINC23, Cyber Ireland’s annual conference, which took place in Galway this week.

The two-day conference brings together more than 300 professionals from Ireland’s cyber security sector including representatives from industry, education and government.