IT security jobs still top the list of toughest to fill

With all of the attention paid to information security for the past few years, it might be tempting to think the job market has caught up with the demand for IT security professionals. But that would be very wrong. In fact, information security analysts are the hardest pros to find by far among top IT job roles.

That is the finding of the IT Salary Report 2018 from Computer Economics, which looked at several key job roles in software development, data management and IT security. Survey respondents were asked to identify the roles they most need and rate the degree of difficulty of finding each role in the current job market.

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Indian manager working in the office late at night

Topping the list was the role of information security analyst, identified by 17 percent of respondents. That was followed by:

  • Application programmer at 12 percent
  • Business systems analyst at 8 percent
  • Database administrators at 8 percent
  • Help desk representative at 7 percent
  • Network engineer at 5 percent
  • System administrator at 5 percent
  • Data scientist at 4 percent

“The jobs that are the toughest to fill is also a highly regional issue,” noted Tom Dunlap, director of research for Computer Economics. For example, “the companies that listed entry-level jobs such as help desk usually were in areas far away from large universities. Many new grads take their first jobs close to their school, and most workers are unlikely to travel great distances to take an entry-level position.”

“Company size is also a factor in what types of jobs are difficult to fill,” Dunlap said. “Security was a particularly tough position to fill for small companies.”

This story originally appeared in Information Management.
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