Joblift analyzes ethical hacking job postings in U.S.
San Diego, California. August 30th 2018 — According to a 2018 statement from the White House, cyber-attacks cost the U.S. economy upwards of $109 billion in 2016. In response to the escalating nature of these incidents, many companies are now hiring so-called ethical hackers to assess their virtual defenses. Job platform Joblift recently analyzed all 3,769 online job ads for ethical hackers from the last 12 months and found that they grew by a monthly average of 4%. Public interest in the profession is also rapidly growing, which could be good news for U.S. companies, as America is more vulnerable to data breaches than any other country in the world.
Public Interest in Ethical Hacking Growing Four Times Faster Than Job Growth
According to Joblift, 3,769 ethical hacker jobs were posted in the U.S. over the period of the last year. Postings for the position increased, on average, by 4% each month. Comparatively, the number of jobs posted online for the entire U.S. job market decreased by an average of 1% during the last 12 months. In the same window of time, 2,125 Google searches for ethical hacker jobs were performed in the U.S., increasing by an average monthly rate of 17%. While the number of postings currently outstrips public interest in the profession, the latter is growing four times as quickly.
Nearly Two-Thirds of Positions Require a College Degree
Approximately 60% of all ethical hacker postings require a bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science or an equivalent field; 48% listed knowledge of one or more programming languages (Ruby, Python, etc.) as a prerequisite for employment; 45% require ethical hacking certification (CSSLP, OSWE, OSCP, OSWP, OSCE, OSEE, GAWPT, GPEN, GXPN); 38% of postings were for senior level employees. The profile of an ethical hacker, therefore, is one of a highly-skilled, trained and accredited individual — a fact that could result in a shortage of workers if the demand for the position continues to grow at its current rate.
More Postings for Ethical Hackers in U.S. than in Europe’s Top Three Economies Combined
How does the American private sector stack up against other powerhouse western economies? Comparatively, there were 1,439 postings for ethical hackers in the United Kingdom during the last year, 434 in Germany and 270 in France. There were more postings for ethical hackers in the U.S. than in Europe’s top three economies combined. While this may be explained by the obvious difference in population, it could also be attributed to the fact that the United States witnesses the highest number of data breaches globally. According to a 2017 report, the U.S. suffered 1,023 data breaches. Coming in second was the United Kingdom with a mere 38.
Small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are especially at risk. According to the 2017 State of SMB Cybersecurity, 61% of SMBs were victims of cyber-attacks in 2017. However, nearly one half of the organizations that listed openings for ethical hackers were large companies with more than 5,000 employees, which means that SMBs could potentially be leaving themselves open to cyber-attacks. These figures underscore the importance of ethical hackers to American companies — SMBs in particular.
ABOUT JOBLIFT
Joblift is a job platform that makes the hiring process intuitive and frictionless for both job seekers and employers. By using the latest machine learning techniques and big data-based algorithms, Joblift provides an optimal match between applicant and organization. Currently active in the US, the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands, Joblift cooperates with over 4,000 partners to combine over 10 million job postings on our platform. Our highly energetic and entrepreneurial team is led by experienced founders Lukas Erlebach (CEO) and Alexander Rausch (COO), who most recently held C-Level positions at Zalando and Amorelie.