With organizations reliant on a myriad cloud services and platforms after years of rapid digital transformation, research shows a far greater need exists for cloud security capabilities among cybersecurity professionals than the current pool of skills can support.
A range of factors including economic pressures, new emerging technologies and geopolitical disruption have created challenges for organizations trying to find, develop and retain the right mix of skills to address their cybersecurity needs and challenges. Cloud skills are at the forefront of this challenge, ISC2’s 2025 Cybersecurity Workforce Study brought this into focus, showing that cloud computing security continues to rank among the most pressing cybersecurity skills needs globally.
More than one-third of respondents (36%) who indicated that their organization’s security team had at least one skills need cited cloud computing security, second only to AI (41%). Notably, this represents a 6% increase from 2024, showing that demand for cloud security skills within organizations is growing even though cloud services are already firmly embedded in enterprise environments.
The Cloud Landscape
Cloud computing has evolved at pace in the last decade, with many organizations now operating in multicloud environments. At the same time, cloud services are evolving with organizations at different stages of cloud maturity and adoption. This trend is likely to continue, with Gartner predicting that 90% of organizations will adopt a hybrid cloud approach by 2027.
And yet according to ISC2’s research, workforce readiness is not keeping pace. Just over a third (34%) of cybersecurity professionals say they have significant knowledge in cloud computing security, while the majority (53%) say they have some knowledge and 13% say they have no knowledge in this area.
As cloud environments become more complex, securing them becomes more challenging—not less; meaning widespread cloud adoption has not reduced risk or diminished the need for specialized cloud security skills. This dynamic helps explain why cloud computing security remains a top skills need year after year. Even as attention expands to newer technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the intertwined nature of the cloud with these products and services has maintained cloud skills as a critical and growing need. Gartner also predicts that one of the most urgent Generative AI challenges over the next year will be managing and securing data synchronization across the hybrid cloud environment. Despite this, ISC2’s research points to emerging opportunities: 15% of respondents say they believe AI security tools will have a positive impact on cloud configuration, such as improving efficiencies, reducing costs and helping with time-consuming tasks.
Hiring Managers VS. Professionals: Where Perspectives Differ
The ISC2 2025 Cybersecurity Workforce Study compared the skills hiring managers say they are looking for with the skills cybersecurity professionals believe are most in demand. The findings highlight a meaningful divergence between these two perspectives. Cloud security emerged as the top technical skill sought by hiring managers (29%), while cybersecurity professionals ranked it second among the most in demand skills (40%), just behind AI and machine learning (ML) (44%).
Key Skills for Cloud Security
Looking more closely at skills needs and supply, and the divergence between hiring managers and cybersecurity professionals, the study compared the specific cloud security skills hiring managers say they are looking for, with the cloud security skills cybersecurity professionals believe are most in demand for those seeking to advance their careers.
While there is alignment on the fundamentals, a few notable differences emerged.
Cloud architecture and secure design ranks highest for both groups—cited by 41% of hiring managers and 50% of cybersecurity professionals—underscoring the shared view that secure cloud environments must be built in from the start.
Additional areas of close alignment—while not always ranking at the same level—include cloud data protection and cloud legal, risk and compliance, where demand levels are similar across hiring managers and cybersecurity professionals.
Differences emerge in several skills areas. For example, hiring managers place greater emphasis on cloud security operations and monitoring, while cybersecurity professionals are more likely to prioritize secure cloud deployment and configuration management. Identity and access management (IAM) is another area professionals rank higher than hiring managers, highlighting a stronger practitioner focus on identity-driven cloud risk.
How Organizational Size Factors In
Demand for cloud security skills varies by organization size, with cybersecurity professionals at larger organizations being more likely to report cloud computing security as a skills need than smaller organizations.
Closing Cloud Thoughts
The findings from this study show that while demand for cloud security skills increases, workforce readiness is not yet where it needs to be to keep pace—a disconnect that remains top of mind for hiring managers. The misalignment could become more pronounced as organizations increasingly adopt multi-cloud and hybrid environments that are fast becoming the norm and are closely intertwined with emerging technologies like AI.
To ensure organizations are meeting these challenges head on, they need to take a deliberate approach to building and/or strengthening cloud security capability. This can include:
- Aligning hiring priorities with evolving cloud risk profiles by identifying which cloud security capabilities are most essential based on your organization’s current cloud environment and maturity level.
- Investing in targeted training and professional development opportunities to upskill security teams in the high-demand areas identified in the report—such as secure cloud architecture and design, data protection, IAM, and cloud security operations.
- Equipping teams with the right tools, including AI-enabled security solutions where appropriate, to improve efficiency and manage the growing scale and complexity of multi-cloud and hybrid environments.
ISC2 Spotlight on Cloud SecurityTo help cybersecurity professionals stay ahead of these challenges, ISC2 is hosting a Spotlight on Cloud Security, a free, two‑day virtual experience on April 28-29, 2026, starting at 10:00 a.m. ET. Join your fellow ISC2 Members, Associates and Candidates for this exclusive event that brings together industry leaders, practitioners and solution experts to explore how cloud security strategies must evolve in response to AI‑driven threats, growing identity complexity and an increasingly borderless enterprise. ISC2 members can earn up to 5.5 CPE credits for free at this two-day virtual event. |
