Cybersecurity Career Paths to Consider in 2022

Companies all around the country realize how important cybersecurity is to them. They know that they hold onto a good deal of data and if they want to keep it protected, and protect their customers at the same time, then they need to consider hiring the right cybersecurity professionals to help get that done.

If you are a cybersecurity professional, there are a number of different paths that you can consider following to help you succeed. Some of the best career paths that you can pursue in 2022 include:

Incident Response Analyst

These professionals will become the first responders to any cyberattack that may come up. They will take the time to investigate, analyze, and then respond to some of these cyber incidents as well.

As they go through their work, they will need to find the threats, contain them, and then erase them off the network before they will cause more harm. While these roles may not need advanced qualifications in order to get the position, there are a few skills the professional will need to have first. These include:

Security assessment skills across a variety of platforms like Metasploit, NMAP, Nessus, and Netcat.
Security architecture, networking, and administration skills.
Computer intrusion and incident response procedure skills.

This professional is important to many companies, which means they will be able to find many good paying jobs along the way. They can expect to make close to $71,000 on average for this kind of work.

Risk Analysis

This professional is going to need to do routine assessments of the cybersecurity landscape and then they can recommend improvements. This could include steps like studying access controls, operational effectiveness, and the policies of the company. It is also common for them to keep track of some of the latest threats and see whether the system can handle it.

There are a food deal of skills that these professionals will need to have in order to succeed as a risk analyst. Some of these skills include:

Compliance demands around PII and industry-specific laws
Data risk and governance
Security strategy and architecture
Threat intelligence and vulnerability assessments
Identity and access management

It is common for these professionals to make close to $75,000 a year on average, though there are some industries, like the healthcare industry, that will be able to offer these professionals a lot more to keep patient information safe and secure.

Penetration Tester

These are basically ethical hackers that are meant to design, simulate, and then execute an attack on a network or system. The goal of doing this is to help the company find some of the vulnerabilities in their system so they can address them and keep unethical hackers out. There are many skills that are necessary to complete this role, including:

Programming skills. The more programming languages the hacker knows, the better.
Vulnerability assessment and penetration testing
Code review for some of the common vulnerabilities.
Compliance protocols
Network related protocols

These professionals are able to make an average of over $102,000. Unlike some of the analyst positions that were discussed before, this is going to be a role that relies on programming quite a bit. Knowing a number of programming languages can make a big difference in whether you can do this job well.

Security Engineer

A security engineer is not going to respond to all of the cybersecurity incidents, but they will help to design and then implement tools that are focused on the security of the network. They are also the professionals who will develop policies and procedures inside that company. There are a number of skills that these professionals will need to have including:

Knowledge of cloud technologies, remediation techniques, and web and network protocols.
Proficiency in several coding languages including C++, C, Java, and Python
Understand how to develop applications, threat modeling, risk identification and other similar topics.
Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity and computer science.

The average amount that these professionals will be able to make in their role is over $102,000. The most common path to getting a job as a security engineer will be to start as a software engineer.

CISO

A Chief Information Security Officer is going to be responsible for protecting the data of a company. As companies work to collect more consumer data to help them succeed and beat out the competition, this role is going to become more important. These professionals will have to help with compliance implications, customer experience, security, and privacy.

The professional who takes on this job will need to have a Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, or information security. They should also know how to define policies and procedures and have a good idea of how to handle information security and risk management to keep the system as safe as possible for the business.

The CISO also needs to be able to manage other people since they are often the leader of a full team. Because of this, they are expected to have good leadership experience, project management skills, strong analytical skills, and a lot of personal integrity to get the work done.

CIO

The Chief Information Officer is a role that has been around for a long time. It may not technically be a part of cybersecurity, but you will be able to get a role as this professional and help keep a network and a system safe.

To do well in this position, you need to have operational, financial, and business skills and know how to make these all come together. You should also have a good deal of experience in computer technology with some time as a leader as well.

Choosing the Right Cyber Security Career Path

There are many different cybersecurity career paths that you are able to choose. Picking one can depend on the exact type of work you would like to accomplish and what education you have. Take a look at some of the great cybersecurity career options available above and see which one is best for you.