Security and compliance skills were named as the top IT skills that hiring managers will be seeking in 2015, according to a survey of 405 senior-level technology professionals conducted by Cybrary.IT from late 2014 to early 2015. And that’s good news for the fledgling cybersecurity training site, which began offering its roster of free security courses a few weeks ago.
While the majority of companies represented in the survey plan to spend the same amount on IT training in 2015 that they spent in 2014, 11 percent said they have no money for IT training at all and fewer than 25 percent spend at least 10 to 20 percent of the total IT budget on training.
Billing itself as the first and only tuition-free massive open online course (MOOC) for IT and cybersecurity training, Cybrary.IT, whose founders came out of the paid IT training space, targets “unserved and underserved” individuals and aims to transform cybersecurity training as a whole, as co-founder Ryan Corey told me upon launch. The price of training is a major issue for individuals and companies, as both attempt to keep up with rapidly changing cyber threats and the growing need for specialized security skills.
Survey respondents confirmed the need for access to free, or at least less expensive, cybersecurity training, citing cost as the number-one impediment.
And following 2014, or “the year of the mega breach,” studies coming out of Ponemon Institute and other research houses are showing more awareness of the need for security skills, and more budget allocation.
Of the survey results, Corey said:
“The data we’ve compiled suggests that companies do not provide enough means for IT training, despite a lack of IT talent and ever-increasing technology and cybersecurity challenges. Additionally, the current state of IT training makes it very difficult for employees to advance in their careers and for people to break into the IT industry, thereby eliminating a lot of talent from the start.”
Kachina Shaw is managing editor for IT Business Edge and has been writing and editing about IT and the business for 15 years. She writes about IT careers, management, technology trends and managing risk. Follow Kachina on Twitter @Kachina and on Google+