Key challenges and strategies for recruiting and retaining cybersecurity talent in emerging technology markets

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Executive Summary

The global cybersecurity landscape faces a critical workforce shortage, with an estimated 4 million unfilled positions worldwide as of 2025. This talent gap is especially pronounced in emerging technology markets, where rapid digital transformation is creating urgent demand for cybersecurity expertise. Organizations in these markets face unique challenges including intense competition for scarce talent, skill mismatches between academic programs and industry needs, and retention difficulties in a highly mobile workforce.

This whitepaper examines the key challenges and strategic approaches for recruiting and retaining cybersecurity talent in emerging markets. Our analysis reveals that successful organizations are implementing multi-faceted strategies: building local talent pipelines through educational partnerships, broadening hiring criteria beyond traditional backgrounds, implementing competitive compensation models that account for global market forces, and creating supportive work environments with clear career progression paths.

For Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and talent leaders, this paper provides an actionable framework for navigating the complex cybersecurity talent landscape in emerging markets, with specific regional insights for Southeast Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East.

Introduction

The Cybersecurity Talent Crisis in Context

The cybersecurity workforce shortage has become a persistent global challenge. Despite modest growth in the available talent pool, the gap between supply and demand continues to widen, particularly in emerging technology markets where digital acceleration is outpacing talent development.

Recent data illustrates the scale of this challenge:

• The global cybersecurity workforce shortage reached approximately 4 million positions in 2025, with Asia-Pacific accounting for nearly 2.7 million of the unfilled roles

• Latin America and the Caribbean face a shortfall of approximately 1.3 million cybersecurity professionals

• Middle East and Africa's gap of roughly 112,000 professionals may seem smaller in absolute terms, but reflects severe relative scarcity considering population size

• Even in Eastern Europe, with its strong technical education traditions, demand far outstrips supply

For organizations in emerging markets, this talent gap presents both an acute challenge and a strategic opportunity. Companies that can effectively recruit, develop, and retain cybersecurity talent gain a significant competitive advantage in increasingly digitized economies.

Scope and Objectives

This whitepaper focuses specifically on the unique dynamics of recruiting and retaining cybersecurity talent in emerging technology markets. While acknowledging global trends, we examine the particular challenges and opportunities in regions experiencing rapid technological development but facing talent constraints.

The paper aims to:

1. Identify the key challenges in sourcing, recruiting, and retaining cybersecurity talent in emerging markets

2. Analyze regional variations in talent availability, compensation expectations, and educational pipelines

3. Provide actionable strategies for organizations to build effective cybersecurity teams in resource-constrained environments

4. Offer a forward-looking perspective on emerging models for cybersecurity talent development

The Current State of Cybersecurity Talent in Emerging Markets

Regional Analysis of Talent Availability

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia's cybersecurity talent pool is growing rapidly alongside its digital economy. Countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines have identified cybersecurity as a national priority, yielding more professionals entering the field.

Singapore acts as a regional hub with a workforce that includes both expatriates and locals trained through initiatives like the Cyber Security Agency's talent programs. In the broader ASEAN region, however, the gap remains large.

The Philippines faces one of the most severe talent shortages in the region, with critical roles often unfilled; nearly 94% of Philippine organizations suffered a breach in the past year, many attributable to skills gaps. Common roles such as Security Operations Center (SOC) analysts and IT security engineers are in moderate supply, but more advanced specialists remain scarce.

India continues to produce large numbers of STEM graduates annually, yet 30% of its 40,000 cybersecurity job openings were unfilled in 2024 due to skill mismatches. Overall, Southeast Asia offers a young and tech-savvy talent base, but expertise is often concentrated at the entry and mid-levels.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Africa's cybersecurity talent pool remains in early stages of development. With only about 20,000 certified cybersecurity professionals across the entire continent, the shortage is acute relative to population and growing cybersecurity needs.

South Africa has the continent's largest concentration of cybersecurity practitioners, including SOC analysts, penetration testers, and a small number of experienced CISOs. Countries like Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and Rwanda are emerging as secondary talent hotspots driven by growing tech industries and targeted governmental initiatives.

Many organizations across Africa struggle to hire locally for cybersecurity positions. In Nigeria, banks and telecommunications companies report that qualified security engineer positions often remain open for months. In Kenya, there's a growing community of self-taught cybersecurity enthusiasts, but formal cyber roles remain relatively new and limited.

Latin America

Latin America has a sizeable and expanding cybersecurity workforce, but demand still far exceeds supply. The region hosts approximately 1.2-1.3 million cybersecurity professionals but faces a shortfall of hundreds of thousands.

Brazil and Mexico, as the largest economies, have the largest cyber teams. Brazil's banking sector has developed reputable cyber capabilities with some institutions maintaining in-house "ethical hacking" teams. However, even there, companies struggle to hire enough cloud security specialists and experienced incident responders.

Spanish-speaking South America (Colombia, Chile, Argentina) has seen a surge in tech startups and outsourcing companies, driving demand for security roles to serve both domestic and foreign clients.

Roles in demand across Latin America include SOC analysts, penetration testers, application security engineers, and IT auditors. These roles are increasingly available, though with varying quality. High-level roles such as security architects and CISOs with 10+ years of experience remain difficult to fill.

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe has established a strong reputation for technical talent, particularly in cybersecurity. Countries like Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, the Baltic states, and Ukraine produce substantial numbers of IT and engineering professionals, many of whom now work remotely or have emigrated.

The region is particularly known for its penetration testers, malware analysts, and cryptography experts, a legacy of strong mathematical and scientific education. For example, Ukraine was home to large outsourcing firms that included security services before the conflict, while Poland hosts numerous security consultancies and SOCs for Western companies.

Many SOC analyst and engineering roles can be filled relatively easily in Eastern Europe with high competency. However, because the talent is in high demand globally, local companies or less competitive employers may still experience a "talent crunch" as they compete with multinational corporations.

Middle East

The Middle East, including Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and others like Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, has rapidly increasing demand for cybersecurity talent, though local supply is still catching up.

The Gulf states are investing heavily in cybersecurity as part of their economic visions (e.g., Saudi Vision 2030). They have attracted international talent and started developing local professionals, yet many organizations still report unfilled positions and rely on expatriates.

Outside the Gulf, countries like Egypt have a relatively large IT workforce and are now contributing to cyber talent. Egypt's outsourcing industry includes security services, with Egyptian SOC analysts and compliance specialists serving Middle Eastern and African markets.

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