Women Ascending in Cyber Security Field, Yet Confronting More Redundancies and Fiscal Reductions Than Men
Cybersecurity sector is witnessing gradual enhancement in gender diversity, however, disparities persist—a recent study reveals that the industry now consists of 5% more women than in 2023, but they are more vulnerable to various work-related hurdles than their male counterparts. Approximately 32% of female survey participants stated that their workplaces underwent security-related job cuts in the past year, while only 23% of males reported the same.
To commemorate Women’s History Month in March, ISC2 dived into the data gathered for its Research on Cybersecurity Workforce for 2024. The industry’s certification and training body surveyed 15,852 professionals responsible for cybersecurity tasks globally, out of which 14% were women. In the year 2024, women made up 22% of security teams across the world, in contrast to 17% in 2023, with the United States slightly lagging behind the global average at 19.2%.
However, 16% of respondents mentioned that their firms have no female representation in their security teams at all, and only 5% claimed to have an equal number of men and women. Females engaged in cybersecurity roles tend to hold more senior positions, with 55% of them holding positions at management level or higher, and 53% having the authority to make recruitment decisions. A mere 7% occupy C-Suite roles like CTO and CISO, but the availability of such roles is limited.
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Women Unequally Subjected to Work-Related Obstacles
The study revealed that 67% of women working in cybersecurity are content with their jobs, compared to 66% of men. Although the satisfaction rate is high for both genders, it reflects a continuous decline. In 2022, 82% of women and 73% of men expressed satisfaction with their jobs, and in 2023, the figures were 76% and 70% respectively. Analysts attribute this declining trend to increasing “financial pressures and workload demands.”
The industry suffers from established shortages in skilled workforce, leading to overtasked employees; however, data from ISC2 indicates that women encounter more diverse work-related hurdles than their male counterparts. Besides the difference in layoff experiences between women and men in the previous year, 40% of female participants reported facing reductions in cybersecurity budget and 42% faced recruitment freezes, compared to figures of 36% and 37% for men, respectively. Only 31% of male cybersecurity professionals noted that their teams had halted promotions and pay raises, while the figure was 36% for women.
“The data demonstrates that organizations where female respondents are employed have experienced more cybersecurity cutbacks than those with male respondents,” stated ISC2 analysts.
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