Women account for 22 percent of security teams on average, according to the new ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study, released for Women’s History Month.
The global survey’s findings are supported by a variety of industry studies, including data from LinkedIn that was gathered at the same time as the ISC2 study.
The report noted that this is “illustrative of the scale of the rebalancing needed to deliver gender parity across cybersecurity teams.”
The challenge is complicated further by 16 percent of respondents noting that their security teams contain no women at all, while only five percent claim to have parity.
As for the cybersecurity roles that women hold, 55 percent of women respondents are in managerial or higher positions in their organisations (including seven percent in C-Suite roles such as CTO, CISO, and CIO). Furthermore, 53 percent are also hiring decision-makers. Overall, they have an average of 13 years working in IT roles and nine years working in cybersecurity roles.
In addition to the high percentage holding senior and decision-making roles, women working in cybersecurity come into the profession with a strong educational base. More than a third (38 percent) hold a bachelor’s degree, many in STEM fields (51 percent in CIS or cybersecurity, 12 percent in engineering). Almost half (48 percent) hold a master’s degree or equivalent (58 percent in CIS or cybersecurity, 10 percent in engineering) and 9 percent hold a doctorate or post-doctorate.
Layoffs and freezes impacting women’s workplace happiness and job satisfaction
Despite the gender disparity in the cybersecurity sector, women working in cybersecurity roles have consistently retained a higher degree of job satisfaction compared to men over the past three years, said the report.
Respondents reported that job satisfaction declined amongst women and men working in cybersecurity for the last two years. The study findings revealed that 67 percent of women respondents were satisfied in their cybersecurity role, compared to 66 percent of men who participated in the study. These satisfaction figures have declined from highs of 82 percent for women and 73 percent for men in 2022, arguably impacted by the economic and workload pressures the sector has faced in the past two years.
Alongside the positive but declining job satisfaction levels, 32 percent of women respondents overall noted that their organisations experienced security layoffs over the last year. This was higher than men who responded, where 23 percent noted the same.
Among women participants who experienced layoffs within the cybersecurity team itself, job security fell to 64 percent. That figure was slightly higher (66 percent) where wider layoffs in the organisation had occurred, while satisfaction rose to 71 percent amongst women who said they had experienced no layoffs at all in the last year. In comparison, male participant job satisfaction was lower across the board (59 percent for cybersecurity layoffs, 64 percent for broader organisation layoffs and 70 percent for no layoffs).
In addition to layoffs, 40 percent of women respondents experienced cybersecurity budget cuts (compared to 36 percent of men), 42 percent experienced hiring freezes (compared to 37 percent of men) and 36 percent of women responded that they had experienced cybersecurity team freezes on promotions and pay rises, compared to 31 percent of men who participated in the study.
Flexibility in the workplace
The decline in job satisfaction over the last two years has also been impacted by changes in working practices. In particular, the scaling back of remote and hybrid working at many organisations has translated into differences in workplace contentment.
The study found that while only 20 percent of women respondents were fully remote workers, they had the highest job satisfaction of any respondents based on work location (73 percent), compared with 70 percent of men who stated they were fully remote workers.
