Demand for information security experts in the United States is outstripping the available supply by a widening margin, according to a pair of recently released reports.
A report from Burning Glass Technologies, which develops technologies designed to match people with jobs, shows that demand for cyber security professionals over the past five years grew 3.5 times faster than demand for other IT jobs and about 12 times faster than for all other jobs.
Burning Glass said its report is based on a study of job postings for cyber security professionals placed by U.S. businesses and government agencies over the past five years.
In 2012, there were more than 67,400 separate postings for cyber security-related jobs in a range of industries, including defense, financial services, retail, healthcare and professional services. The 2012 total is 73 percent higher than the number of security jobs posted in 2007, Burning Glass said. By comparison, the number of job postings for all computer jobs grew by about 20 percent between 2007 and 2012. Posting for all jobs grew by only 6 percent during the period.