The top 5 states for cybersecurity jobs

The rising demand for infosec jobs

The demand for cybersecurity jobs hasn’t waned in the last decade. On the contrary, the talent gap has been widening. And given the growing magnitude of data breaches across all industries — and a 50 percent increase in 2019 over the previous four years — it’s a good bet that this need will continue to grow.

Consider these numbers:

• In the United States alone, there’s an estimated cybersecurity workforce shortage of nearly half million workers (source)
• The ratio of supply to demand (meaning the number of workers to the number of openings) is 1.9 for the industry, compared to 4.9 national average for all jobs (source)
• The cybersecurity specialist occupation is growing at an annual compound rate of 30 percent (source)
• The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects a 32 percent growth in the employment for information security analysts between 2018 and 2028

While the demand is strong across the country, some states rise to the top based on criteria such as the number of openings and salary. Let’s take a look at some of the best states for cybersecurity jobs. (Note: Except for Virginia, these are not listed in any particular order of ranking).

Virginia: Top for public sector

Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas in Maryland and Virginia are hot for cybersecurity jobs and home to numerous cybersecurity companies. Virginia, in particular, takes the torch for the number of job openings in the public sector, as well as the number of private sector jobs outside of Silicon Valley. Consumer website Comparitech ranked Virginia as the No. 1 state for information security jobs, based on data such as salary, job openings and long-term projections.

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