The cybersecurity industry has grappled with workforce shortages for years—a challenge that creates prime media positioning opportunities for forward-thinking companies. According to a 2024 report from CyberSeek, more than 500,000 unfilled cybersecurity positions are available, with only enough workers to fill 83% of these jobs.
This widening skills gap offers a perfect news hook and thought leadership angle. Cyber threats are growing exponentially as organizations connect more systems both on-premises and in the cloud and as attackers deploy increasingly sophisticated malicious techniques. This crisis is exacerbated by the accelerating technological evolution, which has significantly outpaced human capacity.
These mounting pressures put businesses and critical infrastructure at risk of damaging attacks, making the narrative around talent shortages more newsworthy and urgent than ever before. Within these obstacles lies a unique opportunity for organizations to differentiate themselves in a noisy media landscape. Here’s how businesses can transform these critical industry challenges into valuable business growth opportunities.
The Media Narrative Around Workforce Challenges
The cybersecurity workforce shortage has reached a dangerous level. The gap between needed and available professionals continues to widen. Compounding this problem is the rapidly evolving technology landscape, which outpaces education systems, certifications and training for cybersecurity professionals.
At the same time, attack surfaces are expanding dramatically through cloud adoption, remote work and connected devices, requiring security teams to monitor multiple environments constantly. Alert fatigue, burnout and employee retention issues only compound the existing workforce stress, creating multiple angles for media coverage.
The business impact of these shortages manifests in concrete risks to business continuity and critical infrastructure. Without enough skilled professionals to detect, prevent and remediate weak points in systems, organizations are left vulnerable to dangerous and damaging attacks. Skills shortages can also delay response and recovery efforts, prolonging disruptions to business operations. These roadblocks create a cycle where under-resourced teams face escalating demands with diminishing capacity to respond effectively.
However, rather than just viewing these gaps as obstacles, conscientious leaders are discovering that these challenges create opportunities to differentiate themselves by highlighting their unique strategies for workforce development and security enhancement. The key is to position yourself not as a victim of this industry-wide challenge but as a visionary offering solutions and leadership.
Strategic Approaches That Turn Industry Challenges into Media Wins
Organizations can convert industry challenges into opportunities through several approaches. One effective method is showcasing a company’s strategy for overcoming the skills challenge. Whether through innovative recruitment processes, in-house training programs or partnerships with universities, businesses can create compelling stories that showcase how they overcome problems internally.
At Treble, we always emphasize the power of data-driven insights in media relations. Journalists' eyes light up like they’re a kid in the candy shop, as statistics and research add credibility and urgency to their stories. By sharing statistics, proprietary data or in-house reports, organizations can emphasize the gravity of their challenges, making the company’s narrative more impactful.
Additionally, contrarian perspectives can offer thought-provoking insights that spark conversation and draw attention to your innovative approach to solving the skills gap. For example, questioning the industry’s overreliance on external hiring versus creating in-house training and opportunities for growth from within or challenging AI’s role in replacing human expertise can create a “moment” in a crowded media landscape. (Disclaimer: Consult your PR team before going rogue and saying anything too controversial.)
Perhaps the most compelling is leveraging customer success stories and case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of your solution in bridging the skills gap. Whether it’s a monitoring system that removes the need for humans to scan multiple systems at once for potential threats or a training program that successfully upskilled a team of analysts to cybersecurity experts, these real-world examples provide evidence of how your organization delivers measurable improvements in workforce efficiency and capability.
Building Long-Term Value
Turning the cybersecurity skills gap into strategic opportunities is a powerful strategy for elevating a company’s voice and driving industry change. By proactively sharing insights, data-driven research and innovative solutions—while positioning themselves as leaders in workforce development—cybersecurity companies can strengthen their role in tackling industry issues. This approach addresses critical business needs and builds a more resilient cybersecurity ecosystem for all.
The most successful companies in this space go beyond tactical responses to build a sustained narrative platform that journalists return to repeatedly for insights and perspectives. By transforming workforce challenges into media opportunities, a savvy PR team can help cybersecurity clients build their share of voice, enhance brand reputation, and ultimately support business growth in an increasingly competitive market.