Addressing Europe’s cybersecurity skills gaps – Findings from the latest CyberHubs Needs Analysis Report

In a world of rising cyber threats, Europe’s cybersecurity resilience depends heavily on a workforce equipped with the right skills and expertise. Recognising this critical need, the CyberHubs project has published a comprehensive analysis on cybersecurity skills and roles gaps across seven European countries: Belgium, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Spain.

The report highlights that, despite an increasing demand for cybersecurity professionals, skills shortages persist across key roles. These include high-demand positions like Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), Cybersecurity Implementers, and Cyber Incident Responders. Such roles are vital as organisations seek experts capable of securing digital infrastructure and responding to complex threats effectively.

Key findings

The CyberHubs report provides a detailed look at the challenges each country faces in building a skilled cybersecurity workforce. Common trends observed across the CyberHubs countries include:

• High demand for cybersecurity implementers and incident responders: These roles are critical as organisations face more sophisticated cyber threats and are under pressure to meet compliance requirements, particularly under new regulations such as the NIS2 Directive.

• Growing importance of transversal (soft) skills: In addition to technical knowledge, employers seek professionals with problem-solving, analytical thinking, and communication skills. These soft skills are crucial, especially for leadership roles like CISO, where the ability to explain complex security risks to non-technical stakeholders is essential.

• Demand for emerging technical skills: As cybersecurity evolves, new technical competencies are needed in areas such as AI Security, Cloud Security, and Threat Analysis. Countries like Estonia and Hungary are specifically targeting skills in emerging technologies such as blockchain and secure coding.

• In the IT-related skills category, the aggregated results indicate that companies, although converging on some key skills, have a broader and more mixed demand than for cybersecurity skills. All the following skills are among the top skills across the findings of the seven country-specific reports and count 3 occurrences out of 7: Enterprise Architecture & Infrastructure Design, Network Management, System Administration & Integration, Data Analysis. Additionally, skills were highlighted as top IT-related skills (with only one occurrence each in the country reports), including Operating Systems, Technology Fluency, Database Administration, Data, Asset and Inventory Management, and Software Development & Computer Languages.

• For the category of organisation-related skills, the aggregated results indicate that the following skills are of value for the surveyed companies: Risk Management. this skill clearly stands out as the most demanded organisation-related skill across the seven CyberHubs countries, with a recurrence of 5 out of 7. Other skills of high importance (recurrence: 2 out of 7) include Business Continuity, Education and Training Delivery & Development, Project Management, Organisational Awareness. And, with one occurrence but among the top organisation-related skills, the results of the country-specific reports showed that Policy Development and Process are important.

Tackling skills gaps through education and training

The report identifies a significant mismatch between available cybersecurity training and the demands of the labour market. Currently, the education and training landscape across the CyberHubs countries falls short in both volume and scope, often focusing heavily on technical skills while overlooking soft skills development.

To bridge this gap, the CyberHubs project suggests enhancing collaboration between academia and industry, expanding hands-on training opportunities, and developing specialised programmes in emerging areas such as AI-driven cybersecurity and risk management. Many organisations are adopting strategies such as on-the-job training, upskilling current IT staff, and hiring professionals who can then be trained to meet the demands of specific cybersecurity roles.

The path forward

To ensure Europe’s resilience against cyber threats, CyberHubs aims to support each country in developing tailored national Cybersecurity Skills Strategies. By aligning educational offerings with workforce needs, CyberHubs is committed to helping these nations close the cybersecurity skills gap, fostering a more secure and competitive digital landscape across Europe.

For a deeper look into each country’s specific cybersecurity skills gaps and strategies, read and download the full report and visit the resources page to explore the strategic approaches of each CyberHub country.