Source · Select Committees · Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Recommendation 14
14
Accepted
Paragraph: 116
Support free courses, educators, and improve industry hiring to address cyber skills shortage.
Recommendation
We are concerned about the ongoing skills shortage, as recognised in both the Government and industry’s regular reporting on cybersecurity skills in the labour market, and believe that the shortage will be exacerbated further as the product safety regime comes into force. We support industry’s calls for the Government to do more to address this issue. The Government should also take steps to support the availability of free courses across the country, encourage more professionals to become cybersecurity educators, improve the provision of core professional skills among the existing workforce and incentivise industry to improve hiring practices and retention rates.
Government Response Summary
The government acknowledges an ongoing cyber skills shortage and states it already funds free cyber bootcamps across the UK through the DfE and National Cyber Strategy Programme. It also commits to continuing engagement with industry on improving hiring and retention.
Paragraph Reference:
116
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
We partially agree with this conclusion. The Government agrees that there is an ongoing cyber skills shortage that is likely to be exacerbated as the importance of cyber security continues to increase. A priority of the National Cyber Strategy is to boost the size, quality and diversity of the UK cyber workforce. Our most recent Labour Market Survey tells us that there is an estimated annual shortfall of 11,200 people entering the field. In order to address this, the Government funds a range of cyber bootcamps through both the DfE Skills Bootcamps programme and National Cyber Strategy Programme. These are free to individual participants across the UK. This complements a range of industry-led initiatives, including the FutureLearn ‘Introduction to Cyber Security’ course delivered by the Open University. The Government also delivers the CyberAware campaign which looks to boost awareness and cyber hygiene best practice amongst the UK population. The Government agrees that supporting educators is essential in order to increase access to information about a career in cyber security and technology more broadly, as well as inspiring more young people to pursue this field. We engage with like-minded countries to understand best practice, as do industry and academia across the UK. The Government also agrees that organisations must improve their hiring practice and retention issues, given the need to close the cyber skills gap that exists. Industry is key to progress here and we will continue to engage on these topics with core industry-government groups, such as the Cyber Growth Partnership and the National Cyber Advisory Board.