The cybersecurity sector appears to be becoming gradually more diverse in terms of ethnicity but less so where women are concerned.
According to a recent government report, “Cybersecurity skills in the UK labor market,” the percentage of ethnic minorities working in the sector has seen an upward trend over the last three years, although it appears to have plateaued at 22 percent after rising from 16 percent in 2020 to 25 percent in 2022. This cyber workforce is slightly more diverse than that of the digital sector as a whole, where ethnic minorities account for 18 percent of the workforce. Both are more diverse than the UK workforce as a whole, where only 14 percent of people are from ethnic minorities.
This pattern is, however, far from uniform throughout the developed world. Parts of the US, for example, are considerably less diverse. According to a 2021 Aspen Institute study, African Americans represent 13% of the US population but account for only 9% of the cybersecurity sector workforce, while Hispanic workers represent just 4% of the industry despite making up 19% of the country’s population. The study also found that, although women comprise over half the US population, they occupy less than a quarter of cybersecurity jobs.
Cybersecurity jobs tend to be less diverse than the broader STEM field. This year, a National Science Foundation (NSF) study found that Hispanic workers make up 15% of the STEM workforce, while women make up 35%.
The picture for women is very similar in the UK, where the far more recent “Cybersecurity skills in the UK labor market” reports the overall proportion of women in the cyber workforce has remained broadly consistent, standing at 15% in 2020, 16% in 2021, 22% in 2022 and 17% in 2023. Last year’s signs of an upward trend have not been sustained.
