HYDERABAD: Indian IT companies are gearing up for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law, a European legislation expected to create new jobs in the Indian cyber security space.
According to a research by global job portal Indeed, there has been 150 per cent increase in job postings for cybersecurity profiles in India between January 2017 and March 2018, along with a corresponding increase of 129 per cent rise in searches for cybersecurity jobs during the period.
Similarly, there has been a 142 per cent rise in job postings and 188 per cent rise in searches for ‘Data Protection’ job roles.
“Globally, the increasing number of cyber crimes has made it imperative for companies to keep pace with by hiring the right talent to combat them. Companies across the world are gearing up to ensure compliance to GDPR and ePrivacy requirements. The implementation of the GDPR law in Europe has stimulated even Indian companies to fortify their databases, leading to an upswing in the search for cybersecurity and privacy professionals,” said Shashi Kumar, Managing Director, Indeed India.
“Further, the unprecedented increase in the number of cybercrimes in the country has also created a number of job opportunities for data protection and cybersecurity professionals. According to the Cyber Security Jobs Report 2018-2021, cyber crimes will more than triple the number of job openings over the next five years,” Kumar said.
According to IT industry insiders, while bigger IT companies are already equipped to comply with GDPR, mid-size and smaller firms are looking towards recruiting cybersecurity professionals for the same.
“According to GDPR, Indian companies dealing with data of European companies and citizens need to mandatorily create roles like data privacy officers, chief information security officers and others, to safeguard the data. Therefore, new jobs will be created for professionals skilled in cyber security skills,” said Sai Pavan, director of SiriNiti, a cybersecurity services company.
According to Indeed India’s report, India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru, is leading the wave by accounting for 36 per cent of all cybersecurity-related jobs in the country, followed by Mumbai, NCR, Pune and Hyderabad. However, there is a lack of talent to address the demand.
“Jobs in cybersecurity space have been rising in general and GDPR has further boosted it. But still, there is lot of talent crunch in this segment and both academic institutions and industry has to focus on creating more number of professionals skilled in cyber security in India,” said Sudeep Kumar Sen, Assistant Vice President, TeamLease Services.
“It is the right time for both the freshers and experienced professionals to get trained in cybersecurity as it can provide them good career opportunity in future,” Sen said.