Human Capital Actieagenda Cyber Security 2016-2018

The Hague Security Delta (HSD), Europe’s leading security cluster, presents its ‘Human Capital Actieagenda Cyber Security’ to tackle the discrepancies on the Cyber Security labour market. Increasingly organisations are looking for cyber security professionals, but they are in short supply. A modest estimate is an acute shortage of 230-600 professionals in The Netherlands with a demand that is growing over 10% per year. There is also a qualitative mismatch between demand and supply. Overall the access to talent in cyber security needs to improve. The agenda aims to increase the pool of cyber security talent via two tracks: improve the connection between education and labour market, and attract & develop more talent.

 

Goals

The agenda is branded as an ‘agenda for action’ to emphasize the need for action that has to be taken regarding the lack of skilled professionals. This cannot be solved with a simple flip of the switch or by any organisation alone. It requires coordinated efforts and innovative solutions of public and private partners combined. The agenda plans to realise the following goals:

  • Focussed growth in educational offerings and available teachers;

  • Strengthened connection between the educational programmes and employer needs;

  • Increased number of students that choose for a career in cyber security;

  • Develop competences of cyber security professionals;

  • Stimulate retraining programmes to grow the talent pool.

Cooperation with partners

The HSD Human Capital Programme Team addresses urgent human capital issues that organisations working in the field of safety and security are dealing with. Many partners of HSD contributed to the development of the agenda, amongst others: Cyber Security Academy, dcypher, ECP/Dutch Digital Delta, Fortress, Fox-IT, City of Den Haag, De Haagse Hogeschool, KPN, ROC Mondriaan, Security Academy, Security & Continuity Institute (SECO) and Delft University of Technology. Even more partners will be involved in it’s realisation.

 

Results Human Capital Action Agenda 2016-2018

From 2016 untill 2018 the contributing organisations executed two programme tracks. Track 1: focussed on improving the connection between education and labour market. Track 2: focussed on attracting and developing talent. Several successes have been achieved, some of them as output of the HSD Office, most of them as results of partners with support from HSD Office and the HCA Cyber Security. 

  • Three International Cyber Security Summer Schools powered by HSD have been organised that educated over 170 students and young professionals. The 2018 edition resulted in at least 5 hires that we know of.
  • The Cyber Security Academy has educated three cohorts of students in their Master in Cybersecurity, 37 graduated.
  • The P@CT-programme created new successful educational modules, trained 15 teachers, enhanced the number of guest lectures, strengthen the link between secondaryeducation and vocational level training and cybersecurity will become a mandatory part of vocational level IT education from 2019 onward.
  • Through the www.securitytalent.nl-website, HSD Office shared  900 vacancies, 700 studies and courses, 40 job profiles and 20 role models. This lead to an average of 1.800 visits per month.
  • Several HSD Office-initiated studies contributed to the transparency of market demand and -development and thereby supported policymaking in this field.
  • The shortage of cybersecurity talents has been addressed at a national level through a letter signed by several partners and follow-up dialogue with the Ministry of Education.
  • Organised events and meetups powered by HSD Office resulted in the matchmaking of over a 100 (young) professionals per year with employers.

Results Human Capital Action Agenda Cyber Security 2016-2018  

You can download the Human Capital Actieagenda Cyber Security 2016-2018 here (in Dutch only). 

HSD Betrokken partners

De Haagse Hogeschool
Gemeente Den Haag
Fox-IT
Technische Universiteit Delft
Security Academy
ROC Mondriaan
dcypher
ECP Platform voor InformatieSamenleving