Abstract:
The latest U.S. cybersecurity job market report shows that although overall recruitment demand continues to decline and has fallen to the lowest level in the past four years, cybersecurity jobs related to artificial intelligence have bucked the trend, with AI security engineers becoming one of the fastest-growing positions.
The report was released by CyberSN. The data comes from the recruitment data platform JobSpikr, and duplicate positions are eliminated. The researchers then reclassified the recruitment information based on the cybersecurity job classification system established by CyberSN. The system covers 10 major categories and 45 types of cybersecurity functional roles. Therefore, the report focuses more on the skills and work content that companies actually need, rather than the job titles used in recruitment advertisements.
Through the analysis of data, the report attempts to present the changing trend of the current demand for network security skills, and by comparing the data with the same period in previous years, identify the job types that are growing or shrinking the fastest.
Data show that from January to September 2026, the total number of cybersecurity-related job postings in the United States was 235,786, a decrease of 26.4% from 320,210 in the same period in 2025, setting a new low in the past four years.
However, against the background of the cooling of the overall recruitment market, some professional directions still show strong growth momentum. The report pointed out that the growth of two types of jobs related to artificial intelligence and data analysis is particularly significant. Among them, the demand for AI security engineer positions increased by 268.3% year-on-year, and the demand for network security data scientist positions increased by 203.5% year-on-year.
From the overall trend, the demand for artificial intelligence knowledge and skills among enterprises is still strong. In the first nine months of 2026, nearly 15% of cybersecurity job postings mentioned AI-related capabilities, which is basically the same as the 15.1% ratio in the same period in 2025. However, it is worth noting that this type of demand has continued to increase during the year. By September 2026, the proportion of positions involving AI capability requirements has risen to 20%.
Among different functional fields, the most obvious requirements for AI knowledge are research positions. Data shows that 32.7% of research positions mentioned AI skill requirements, an increase of 11.7 percentage points from last year. This was followed by positions related to attack and penetration testing, accounting for 23.3%, an increase of 4.8 percentage points year-on-year; governance, risk and compliance (GRC) positions accounted for 19.8%, an increase of 2.1 percentage points; and planning positions accounted for 18.9%, an increase of 0.6 percentage points.
Telecommuting positions are also a key area of focus in the report. From the perspective of functional division, sales positions have the highest proportion of remote work, reaching 32.8%; GRC positions are 31.2%; attack and penetration testing positions are 24.7%; product security positions are 22.9%; education and training positions are 22.8%; research positions are 21.9%; and defense positions are 21.3%.
At the same time, many traditional cybersecurity positions have experienced significant declines. Among them, the position with the largest decrease was insider threat analyst, with the number of recruitments falling by 55.6%, leaving only 1,088 positions. Cyber risk analysts fell by 51.5% to 4,031 positions; penetration test engineers fell by 45.9% to 3,063 positions; cybersecurity directors fell by 41.0% to 4,688 positions; threat hunters fell by 40.0%. to 1,013 positions; cybersecurity project managers fell by 39.4% to 783 positions; chief information security officer (CISO, including CSO, BSO, ISO and other related titles) positions fell by 38.9% to 2,832 positions.
However, the report notes that the sharp decline in CISO positions is partly affected by unusually high demand levels in 2025. In fact, the number of 2,832 jobs in 2026 is almost exactly the same as the 2,808 jobs in 2024. In addition, the number of CISO positions in the third quarter of 2026 increased by 19.5% compared with the second quarter.
The authors of the report emphasize that this study focuses on "what happens" in the recruitment market, rather than explaining "why it happens." The study did not conduct an in-depth analysis of the specific reasons behind job changes, but measured the real needs of enterprises through a unified job classification framework. The report points out that recruitment job titles are often noisy, so more attention should be paid to the actual work content of the position rather than the job title itself.
Nonetheless, the report makes some noteworthy observations. For example, in terms of leadership and CISO-related positions, research suggests that recruitment trends for these positions are often closely related to how corporate boards view cybersecurity responsibilities and governance issues.
Overall, the U.S. cybersecurity job market is experiencing significant contraction, but artificial intelligence is becoming an important force driving changes in industry demand. For talents with AI security expertise, there are still broad opportunities in the current market; while practitioners who hope to move into management positions such as chief information security officers may need to be more patient and wait for the market to pick up.
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