There is an uncomfortable reality that people entering cybersecurity need to understand.
Cybersecurity still has tremendous long-term opportunity, but getting the first job may be harder than the industry advertisements suggested.
Many organizations want experienced professionals because cybersecurity mistakes can be extraordinarily expensive. At the same time, AI and automation are making it easier to perform some traditional junior-level tasks.
That creates a bottleneck.
The industry needs experienced professionals, but those professionals need somewhere to begin.
The solution is not to abandon cybersecurity. It is to rethink what “entry level” means.
Someone entering cybersecurity in 2026 should consider adjacent entry points such as IT support, networking, cloud operations, systems administration, software development, data analytics, identity administration, GRC, privacy or risk management.
These pathways can provide the technical and business context needed to eventually move into cybersecurity.
The best cybersecurity professionals are often not people who studied cybersecurity exclusively.
They are people who understand technology first and security second—or understand business first and security second.
