Careers in Cyber

The news of Anthropic’s latest model, Mythos, sent shockwaves through the cybersecurity community. This model can, reportedly, unearth and exploit vulnerabilities with unprecedented scale and speed, rendering traditional approaches to software patching woefully slow. Although Mythos’ capabilities are not yet widely available, and knowledge of its true capabilities is still murky, it is nonetheless rattling both markets and cybersecurity leaders who must grapple with the implications for their teams.

As disruptive as Mythos may be, this story is hardly new. It is just the latest in a long-running string of emerging capabilities that security teams, and cyber professionals, must adapt to. It also underscores how rapidly the field is evolving — not only from AI, but also from shifting regulatory requirements, evolving best practices, and the looming threat of post-quantum cryptography, among other things keeping CISOs up at night.

In this climate of constant change, continuous upskilling is a necessity — both for individuals and organizations. However, staying ahead of the curve and adapting to emerging needs is easier said than done. Our research at FourOne Insights has found that 23% of key skill requirements in cybersecurity have shifted since 2023, meaning nearly a quarter of skills are changing roughly every two years. This presents a moving target for training and development, and increases the likelihood of burnout, attrition, and increased business risk.

This means that cybersecurity leaders and practitioners must have actionable, up-to-date information about how skills are shifting, and how workflows are being redesigned, both due to AI and other factors. But if the landscape is shifting so rapidly, how is it possible to keep a pulse on evolving workforce needs? In our research and advisory work at FourOne Insights, we do so by drawing from a variety of novel data sources — such as online job postings, professional worker histories, and AI usage data — to pinpoint the emerging capabilities that cybersecurity workers must develop to remain future-ready.

The Fastest-Growing Cybersecurity Skills

So, what are those emerging capabilities, and how are requirements shifting across the cybersecurity workforce? In our recent research on the fastest-growing cybersecurity skills, we found that, unsurprisingly, AI looms large. At least three of the top 10 fastest-growing cybersecurity skills are AI or AI-adjacent, and the fastest-growing skill in all of cybersecurity is generative AI, which saw demand jump a whopping 678% since 2023. As a result of AI’s rapid adoption, we now estimate that between 17% and 26% of traditional cybersecurity work is either automated or augmented by AI.

AI is not the whole story, however. Also growing in importance are emerging cybersecurity techniques and best practices — such as network segmentation, threat detection, and zero trust architecture. Increasingly, these are becoming standard weapons in a cybersecurity professional’s arsenal. At the same time, the regulatory landscape is constantly in flux, driving rapid growth in skills related to regulatory compliance — such as regulatory frameworks and GDPR. In just the past two years, each of these skills has shown triple-digit growth, even amidst a broader tech hiring slowdown.

Emerging Cybersecurity Skills Are Undersupplied and Drive Up Salaries

With such rapid growth often comes growing pains, and many of these emerging skills suffer from an acute undersupply of talent. As of August 2025, each of these skills faced significant talent shortages — none had more than 80% of the workers that employers demanded. Some skills faced even more dire talent gaps, such as regulatory frameworks, telemetry, zero trust architecture, and cloud-native computing — all of which had only one skilled worker available for every ten openings. By comparison, the available supply of cybersecurity workers overall during the same timeframe, regardless of skillsets, was almost perfectly aligned with employer demand.

This dearth of talent possessing these skills is driving up competition among employers, pushing salaries ever higher. Average pay premiums for cybersecurity workers with these high-growth skills range from around $5,000 for threat detection up to over $30,000 for emerging AI skills. While this is good news for workers who develop these capabilities, it places significant financial strain on organizations, especially those already struggling to align cybersecurity funding with market realities.

The Case for Continuous Upskilling

The rapid pace of workforce change in cybersecurity, combined with the cost and hiring difficulty of recruiting highly skilled workers, means training is no longer a luxury for only the best-resourced cyber teams — it is a strategic imperative for all employers. Cyber leaders cannot assume they will be able to hire workers with critical skills fast enough, and they cannot assume the skills of their existing workers will remain relevant for long. Instead, they must continuously monitor how the market is evolving and invest in targeted training focused on high-growth, high-value skills.

Although some leaders may recoil from the increased training spend, in the long run it is far more desirable than the alternative — both from a financial standpoint and a risk management perspective. Recruiting from a limited pool of qualified workers results in unfilled positions and inflated salaries, which handicaps understaffed security teams, increases operational risks, and sends long-run talent costs soaring.

By contrast, leaders who invest in upskilling can reduce hiring costs, fill open positions more quickly, and build a culture of continuous development — all of which boost team performance, improve morale, and strengthen retention. In short, when a company invests in their people, their people become more invested in the company. Therefore, the organizations that align strategic priorities with high-value opportunities for personal growth will be best positioned to remain resilient, secure, and profitable — regardless of what the future may bring.

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