Talent Radar · Cybersecurity: 73% of Indian firms still can't find the security talent they need.

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Sector edition · Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity demand held strong for two years, and job-ready supply still falls short.

Cybersecurity is the rare corner of Indian tech where demand never cooled. Through two years of a slower broader market, security budgets kept climbing and hiring climbed with them. The constraint has never been appetite; it's supply. DSCI-SANS finds 73% of Indian firms still can't find the skilled people they need, and senior roles now sit open for as long as six months. This edition maps where the demand sits, which skills clear the screen, and what they cost.

Key Findings

What the cyber data is actually saying.

Five findings worth surfacing this edition. The full report carries the role-by-role headcount, the city map and the salary bands behind them; these are the ones we'd flag in a leadership conversation.

01

Demand is broad, and cloud security leads it.

Security hiring in India is broad but uneven. Cloud security is the single largest segment at close to a quarter of all security roles, with SOC operations matching it. Governance, risk and compliance comes next at about a sixth, and the rest splits across security architecture, application security, IAM, pen-testing and OT/ICS.
~25%
Cloud security share of hiring
02

Compliance is now a hiring driver.

The DPDP Act places board and CEO-level accountability on the organisation and mandates a Data Protection Officer for Significant Data Fiduciaries, lifting demand for DPOs, GRC analysts and auditors beyond the usual IT-audit base. PwC India reports 87% of firms are raising cyber budgets, and 83% now call AI-security skills essential.
87%
Firms raising cyber budgets
03

The gap is readiness, not headcount.

India's cyber workforce is now over a million, so the shortage is not about raw numbers. The country produces plenty of IT graduates; few arrive ready for SOC operations, cloud security, DevSecOps, pen-testing or IAM. DSCI-SANS finds 73% of firms short of the skilled people they need and only 27% adequately staffed. Inside India's GCCs, the mid-senior shortfall runs an estimated 25 to 30%.
73%
Firms short of skilled talent
04

Pay runs high, and certifications lift it.

Cybersecurity pay runs high and rises steeply with seniority. Entry SOC roles sit in the ₹4 to 8 LPA band, mid-level specialists in the mid-teens, and senior leadership reaches from ₹60 LPA to well over a crore for a CISO. A CISSP or OSCP can lift pay by roughly 20 to 40% over an uncertified profile at the same level.
20–40%
Certification pay premium
05

Demand spans every regulated sector.

The pressure is heaviest where the regulatory load is. BFSI is severely undersupplied, with the fewest senior specialists. GCCs are building global SOC teams against that 25 to 30% mid-senior shortfall, IT and product firms are standing up internal DevSecOps, healthcare and pharma demand is rising fast as DPDP exposure pulls in GRC roles, and public and critical-infrastructure OT/ICS sits on a tiny pool that is now a national-security priority. Bengaluru sets the top pay benchmark, with Gurgaon and Mumbai close behind on BFSI.
25–30%
Mid-senior shortfall in GCCs
Chart of the edition

Cloud and SOC lead the security hiring mix.

Share of security hiring by segment, India, June 2026. Cloud security and SOC operations lead at about a quarter each; the rest splits across GRC, architecture, application security, IAM, pen-testing and OT/ICS.

Share of security hiring, India, June 2026

Share of hiring Largest segments

Source: Recruise Talent Radar, Cybersecurity, June 2026.
Hiring into this market

Hiring against this shortage? We run the search.

Cloud security, SOC, GRC and senior specialists across BFSI and the GCCs. If you're building a security team against a thin pool, this is the desk that fills it.

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Inside this edition

What's inside this edition.

Sequenced so CHROs and talent leaders get the strategic read up top, and the working tables underneath; built to skim in minutes and use the same day.

01 The read, in brief
02 Key metrics at a glance
03 Share of security hiring
04 Top skills & certifications in demand
05 Talent supply snapshot, India
06 Role & city demand map
07 Salary bands by role
08 Supply vs demand by sector
Methodology & sources

This edition draws on Recruise's own cybersecurity placement and mandate data for the segment mix, the salary bands and the mid-senior GCC shortfall, corroborated with public sources: the DSCI-SANS Skilling Landscape 2026, the (ISC)² Workforce Study 2025, PwC Digital Trust Insights 2026 (India edition), and role and pay signals from LinkedIn India, Naukri.com and Glassdoor, to June 2026. Segment shares are Recruise estimates; third-party findings are attributed inline. Salary bands are indicative and vary with company size and location.

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