PESTLE analysis of Cybersecurity Education (2021)

This report presents an analysis of cybersecurity education, carried out by the REWIRE Project, a Cybersecurity Skills Alliance funded under the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission. 

In this report, REWIRE provides a Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental (PESTLE) analysis of skills shortages, gaps, and mismatches affecting cybersecurity education. PESTLE is a systemic approach that provides a method to understand various gaps and challenges from multiple points of view. 

The European cybersecurity sector is facing several challenges, among them:

1. Lack of infrastructure (equipment and skills).
2. Inability to attract more students to study cybersecurity and to produce graduates with ‘’the right cybersecurity knowledge and skills”.
3. Difficulty for the education and training institutions to adjust and respond to changes in a timely manner.

Skills shortages have a direct impact on the cybersecurity job market. This analysis will thus serve as a basis for the development of a cybersecurity skills strategy for Europe.