Survey of the UK Cyber Security Profession

[ChrisGreen]

(ISC)² is, as you may know, a member of the Cyber Security Alliance, a group of organisations which promote cyber security in the UK. The purpose of the Alliance is to help people like you to develop their careers as professionals. The Alliance is currently delivering a project to create an overarching body for professional development, the UK Cyber Security Council, which is scheduled to launch in April 2021.

The role of the UK Cyber Security Council (the Council) is to champion the cyber security profession across the UK, provide broad representation for the industry, accelerate awareness and promote excellence in the profession. It will do this by delivering thought leadership, career tools and education resources to the cyber security sector and those seeking to enter the sector, alongside helping influence government, industry and academia with the aim of developing and promoting UK cyber security excellence globally and growing the UK’s cyber security skills base.

As part of its work to build this, the Alliance needs to create a view of the profession as it is now so that the Council can monitor how the profession changes in the future.

To achieve this, we would like you to complete a questionnaire about your experience, your background and your qualifications: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6WSKLR6

Your completed questionnaire will be anonymous and will contribute vital information to the survey, enabling the Council to determine how best to help the profession develop in the UK.

Please complete the questionnaire by 17 October 2020. If any of the questions or a set of answers doesn’t seem to apply to you, please pick the most appropriate answer, if there is one, or skip that question and answer the others.

[rslade]

> ChrisGreen ((ISC)² Team) posted a new topic in Career on 10-13-2020 09:08 AM in

>   The role of the UK Cyber Security Council (the Council)
> is to champion the cyber security profession across the UK, provide broad
> representation for the industry, accelerate awareness and promote excellence in
> the profession. It will do this by delivering thought leadership, career tools
> and education resources to the cyber security sector and those seeking to enter
> the sector, alongside helping influence government, industry and academia with
> the aim of developing and promoting UK cyber security excellence globally and
> growing the UK’s cyber security skills base.

How does knowing what my Mom did for a living provide broad representation for
the industry, deliver thought leadership, and promote UK cyber security
excellence?

====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer)
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[dcontesti]

@ChrisGreen @AndreaMoore 

On the survey, I am taken back by some of the questions (no I did not reply as I do not live or work in the UK but was curious as to the questions one would ask).

As Rob points out, what does/do my parents field of employment have to do with my job,,,,many of us grew up with parents that were factory workers and we moved into Security or conversely many of us had parents who were professionals.

I was also taken back by the questions on sexual orientation........NONE of your business......sorry does it matter if I am transgender and working in security?   Or my religion?  Maybe in the UK, it is appropriate to ask those questions, but I would say even in an anonymous survey, I would stop at that point.

And finally, once again, (ISC)2 demonstrates that they really only care about the CISSP or staff simply don't understand the offerings..  I count several certs from ISACA (CISM, CISA, CRISC, etc), several from SANS, several from Microsoft, and at least two from COMPTIA but only the CISSP from (ISC)2.  What about the SSCP a good alternative to SECURITY+ from Comptia, or the CSSLP or the HCISP or the CAP or even something like the ISSAP or ISSMP or ISSEP...........

I am hoping that these were really just oversights and yes, I know there is a line for other but if (ISC)2 is going to post this on a public forum, then it should list other certs.

My nickel canadian

Diana

[AlecTrevelyan]

I suspect the questions about the professions of parents are so they can look to promote cybersecurity as being a way to enable "social mobility". i.e. They can say that a lucrative career in cybersecurity is a way children from poorer families can give themselves a better life.

Although, while I agree that some of the questions may appear crass, there is a "prefer not to say" option so these don't bother me.

Great point about the lack of ISC2 certs beyond the CISSP though, Diana!

However, although I am from the UK, I won't be filling the questionnaire in, just because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ChrisGreen]

Thank you all for the comments and feedback. I will make sure all this feedback is passed on to project team responsible for the survey.

However, given the comments so far I think it is useful to reiterate that this is not an (ISC)² survey.

Rather, this survey has been created and is being fielded by one of the workstreams of the Cyber Security Alliance project to build the UK Cyber Security Council.

All member organisations of the Cyber Security Alliance have shared the same survey link and intro text with their member communities to help the workstream gather responses from those who are happy to participate.

All the questions in the survey are designed to help gain a data-driven understanding of the composition of the UK cybersecurity professional community, so that the planned activities of the UK Cyber Security Council can best serve them.

Thanks

Chris

[dcontesti]

@ChrisGreen 

Not to belabor the point but your opening line:

(ISC)² is, as you may know, a member of the Cyber Security Alliance, a group of organisations which promote cyber security in the UK. The purpose of the Alliance is to help people like you to develop their careers as professionals. The Alliance is currently delivering a project to create an overarching body for professional development, the UK Cyber Security Council, which is scheduled to launch in April 2021.

If (ISC)2 are in fact members of the alliance, then I would expect to see proper representation of the certifications offered and not just the CISSP.

The other issues were minor points (all of which would have caused me to throw the survey into file - 13) but as a member that holds multiple certs, I find it distressing that the survey only mentions the CISSP.

Regards

Diana

[rslade]

> ChrisGreen ((ISC)² Team) posted a new reply in Career on 10-14-2020 04:50 AM in

> All the questions in the survey are designed to help gain a data-driven

I just turned in a column on whether I love or hate "big data" ...

> understanding of the composition of the UK cybersecurity professional community,
> so that the planned activities of the UK Cyber Security Council can best serve
> them.

... so my first thought is "serve them what?" Spam? Thinking back on the
questions, overall, the data gathered would be much more suitable for a marketing
campaign than any kind of educational or career development project.

====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer)
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