Locks and Security News: your weekly locks and security industry newsletter
17th April 2024 Issue no. 701

Your industry news - first

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Demand for IT security rises in 2016

Information Security has become top of the agenda when it comes to what businesses see as their biggest threat, according to NTT Com Security. A quarter of survey respondents said they were certain they would be a victim of a cybersecurity incident, with another 40% saying they were pretty sure they would be hit. On average, a breach would cost companies just short of $1m (£0.69m).

Following this, information has been sourced that IT security professionals are the most sought-after contractors within the UK's growing jobs market according to new research from UK-based recruiting contract finance provider Sonovate.

"The biggest thing to come out of this seems to be the shift in attitude in awareness regarding risk management," NTT Com Security product marketing lead, says the firm's Stuart Reed.

"Partly, this might be fuelled by some of the high-profile breaches that underline the importance of a robust policies-and-procedures approach within an organisation. Nearly 20% of people now view information security as the single greatest risk to their organisation. And from our perspective, it is really encouraging to see the majority of UK businesses now have or are working on an IT security policy."

Overall growth for contract security roles has reached a year-on-year high of 19%, and this level of demand is set to grow by 30% over the course of 2016. 18% of senior business decision makers now see IT security as the biggest risk to their business, compared with just 9% in 2014, according to the security integrator's research.

This highlights the demand for IT security professionals is closely followed by roles in UX (User Experience Design), recording a 17% year-on-year growth. Within IT security, the highest month-on-month demand is for consultants (52%), with network security engineers (26%) and analysts (24%) a close second and third respectively.

However, budgets for resolving security breaches tend to be heavily weighted towards dealing with the consequences, rather than the cause, NTT Com Security added.

With the ever increasing security risks, it is important to keep one ear to the ground when trying to prevent dangers and as demand for IT security professionals increases, it is positive to see that enterprise are investing in their security structures.

30th March 2016