Why South Africa is desperate for cyber-security skills?

The technology sector has long been battling the skills gap, both in South Africa and abroad. Skills are rare, in high demand, and difficult to retain. According to a report by ESG entitled ‘The Life and Times of Cybersecurity Professionals 2020 around 70% of respondents said that their organisations were negatively impacted by the global cybersecurity skills shortage; and the (ISC)2 cybersecurity workforce study found that 64% of security professionals were struggling with finding skills for their own organisations. In short, there’s a skills gap and everybody knows about it. So, the real question is – what is the industry going to do?
What the industry should be doing is focusing on skilling or upskilling people from multiple disciplines and walks of life, providing them with the opportunities they need to become valued cybersecurity professionals in an industry hungry for their passion and expertise.