MARIA BEAMOND
LEONORA RISSE
AUSTRALIA’S CYBERSECURITY SECTOR: WHERE ARE THE WOMEN? by Dr Maria Beamond, Lecturer in Management, RMIT University and Dr Leonora Risse, Senior Lecturer in Economics, RMIT University
At a time when Australia’s security sector is growing
These issues mean the factors contributing to
in importance it is suffering from a skill crisis:
women’s low representation within the cybersecurity
employers are having difficulty finding a sufficient
sector need to be better understood.
number of suitably qualified people to fill available roles. Australia will need around 7000 additional
Available estimates suggest women comprise
practitioners in the security sector by 2024, according
somewhere between 11 percent and 24 percent of
to AustCyber.
the cybersecurity workforce. However, there is no accurate measure of the gender composition of
Moreover, the cybersecurity sector, and the security
Australia’s security industry, nor a clear picture of the
sector more broadly, suffer from a distinct lack of
types of jobs women are undertaking and the skills
diversity, particularly from a low level of participation
they possess.
by women. Women’s under-representation could
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be the result of biases and barriers impeding their
RMIT Centre for Cyber Security Research & Innovation
career opportunities and advancement in the sector.
(CCSRI) and the Australian Women in Security
The growing awareness of the benefits diversity can
Network (AWSN) are partnering to undertake a
bring to organisational performance, decision-making
research project to address this knowledge gap by
and responsiveness and to meeting the real-world
providing new statistics on the gender composition
challenges organisations face, leads to a realisation
of the security sector in Australia, including
that the sector, as a whole, is not operating optimally.
cybersecurity. These fresh insights will be drawn
W O M E N I N S E C U R I T Y M A G A Z I N E
N O V E M B E R • D E C E M B E R 2022