Skills Shortages Trump Headcount as Critical Cyber Challenge

**Executive summary:** ISC2's 2025 Cybersecurity Workforce Study, based on a survey of over 16,000 professionals, finds 59% of organizations report critical or significant cybersecurity skills shortages—especially in AI, cloud security, risk assessment, and application security—driven primarily by talent gaps and budget limits; respondents link these shortages to increased incidents, misconfigurations, and oversight, even as many view AI as an opportunity for skill development and headcount appears to be stabilizing.