UK organisations must do more to develop cyber security skills

According to the report, the UK is now further behind than other western nations when it comes to upskilling IT professionals in skills such as security. British IT leaders say they will ringfence just 10%, on average, of their annual budget for training new hires, less than their counterparts in Benelux (15%), Germany (14%) and the US (14%).

The concerns from these senior decision makers are reflected by only a quarter (26%) of IT professionals in the UK saying thay are adequately experienced in cloud security. The findings raise concerns that the country could be heading towards a skills shortage, leaving it exposed to attacks by cyber-criminals and subsequently facing large fines under GDPR.

The shortage of adequately trained cyber-security professionals is worrying given UK companies are more reliant on the cloud than ever before. It is estimated that 88% of businesses now use the cloud in some form. Despite this, Rackspace’s research suggests that only a third (32%) of British IT professionals want or expect to be supported with training to upskill their cloud security knowledge.

What’s more, the absence of equal levels of investment in training new hires, on skills such as cyber security, compared to other nation states is expected to contribute to a shortage of professionals to meet demand in the next five years. In fact, the Centre for Cyber Safety and Education (ISC) predicts there will be 1.8 million unfulfilled jobs globally by 2022. This comes as new analysis of the IT job market revealed the number of vacancies citing Cyber Security (24%) and Data Security (47%) have all risen in the last year, highlighting that organisations are reacting to increasing regulations and threats.

This lack of skills has had a positive impact on the salaries of those who do possess the expertise. Rackspace’s research found that over a third (35%) of UK IT leaders believe professionals with cloud security skills are the individuals that their organisation is willing/currently pays the most for, leading to the emergence of an employee, rather than an employer market.

Commenting on the findings, Lee James, EMEA CTO at Rackspace said: “Cyber-attacks or data breaches have become everyday news in the UK and businesses are under pressure to improve their own defences and build stronger security teams as a result. Yet, the reality is that years of neglect in recruiting cyber security professionals and developing their skills has created a hole for organisations to fill. These statistics show that companies are likely to face consequences from both cyber gangs and regulators, who will punish those not taking the right steps.”

“With attacks becoming increasingly sophisticated, and regulations raising the stakes when it comes to consequences of data breaches, businesses cannot afford to be complacent about gaps in their security expertise. We now live in an age where cyber-attacks are an inevitability, rather than a risk, and organisations need to both upskill their workforce and work with trusted partners with the right security knowhow – or risk financial and reputational damage once GDPR comes into effect.”