Cybersecurity Skills Academy

• July 9, 2024
• Andrew

“The EU Cyber Solidarity Act and the Cybersecurity Skills Academy are our two new tangible instruments to address the EU’s operational cybersecurity needs: the Act brings forward concrete measures that will allow the EU to respond to threats and attacks; and the Academy aims at reinforcing our skills base so that we have the people we need for this purpose.”
Margaritis Schinas, Vice-President for Promoting our European Way of Life

The Cyber Skills Academy is a European policy initiative, part of the 2023 European Year of Skills, that aims to bring together and improve the coordination of existing cyber skills initiatives in order to close the cyber security talent gap, strengthen the EU cyber workforce and boost EU competitiveness, growth and resilience.
The security of the European Union cannot be guaranteed without the EU’s most valuable resource: its people. The EU urgently needs professionals with the skills and competences to prevent, detect, deter, and defend the EU against cyberattacks.

EU response to cyber skills shortage in the workplace
In 2022, the shortage of cybersecurity professionals in the EU ranged between 260,000 and 500,000, while the EU’s cybersecurity workforce needs were estimated at 883,000 professionals. In addition, women only amounted to 20% of cybersecurity graduates and to 19% of information and communications technology specialists. In the latest Eurobarometer on Cyber Skills (May 2024), 45% of companies surveyed cited difficulty in finding qualified candidates as one of the main challenges in recruiting staff with the right cybersecurity skills. In addition, only 25% of companies have provided cybersecurity training or awareness raising to their employees in the past year.

Also, looking at the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook report, published in January 2024, the impact the skills gap has on businesses is alarming. 36% of respondents list the skills gaps as the main challenge to achieving their cyber-resilience goals.

The Commission responded to this shortage of talents, adopting a Communication on a Cybersecurity Skills Academy (“the Cyber Skills Academy”) on 18 April 2023, which lays out the various Academy’s activities.

What are the Academy’s main actions?
More specifically, the Cyber Skills Academy builds on four areas of activities which you will find below. Each area has a dedicated page with information on the topics covered by that area.