Future-Ready Skills for Cybersecurity Professionals
Written by:
University of Tulsa
• Jul 15, 2026
According to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report, cybersecurity skills ranked among the top three most in-demand skill sets in the world in 2025, which is in line with its projection that technology-related roles will experience the fastest growth of any career field by 2030.
However, while it’s easy to assume that technical cybersecurity skills would be in the highest demand, the report found that employers are prioritizing more durable soft skills — human-centric abilities to connect and collaborate — that are essential future-ready skills. With a master’s degree in cybersecurity, cybersecurity professionals can prepare for the future of work.
Why Enter a Career in Cybersecurity?
Beginning a cybersecurity career means entering a profession that is in demand across industries and can be highly rewarding, financially and otherwise. Consider the salary and job outlook for information security analysts, who plan and implement security measures for computer networks and systems.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), information security analysts earned a median annual salary of $124,900 in 2024 — almost $20,000 higher than the median for all computer-related occupations, and more than $75,000 higher than the median for all occupations.
The number of open positions for information security analysts is expected to increase by 29% between 2024 and 2034. In comparison, all computer-related roles have a projected growth rate of 9%, and the U.S. labor market has a projected growth rate of just 3%.
Why Focus on Future-Ready Skills?
According to the WEF, 39% of existing skill sets across every profession are expected to be transformed or fully outdated by 2030. This statistic is especially pressing when considering the speed at which technology is advancing. It’s perhaps no wonder that many industries, including cybersecurity, are facing a skills gap, with the WEF predicting that 59 out of every 100 workers across every industry will need to be retrained by 2030.
While technical skills have to evolve to keep up with changing technology, durable soft skills — like creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, agility, and curiosity — are increasingly in demand.
Leaders in fields like technology that once deprioritized soft skills are now recognizing their importance, with the WEF reporting that the number of business leaders who emphasized the need for these skills increased by 20% between 2018 and 2025. Soft skills are expected to become increasingly in demand between 2025 and 2030 across all roles, including cybersecurity.
6 Future-Ready Skills for Cybersecurity Professionals
Future-ready skills aren’t built around a certain technology. Instead, they’re the underlying ways of thinking and reasoning that already played an integral role in computer-related professions and are expected to only increase in importance as technology advances.
1. Curiosity
Cybersecurity professionals need to be lifelong learners, making curiosity an essential future-ready skill. As technologies like artificial intelligence continue to advance, cybercriminals will have more tools to threaten their targets’ information security.
At the same time, cybersecurity professionals will have access to resources to improve security measures. Monitoring advances in the field requires the curiosity to pursue continuous learning, retraining, and reskilling.
2. Creative Thinking
Solving emerging problems and anticipating different types of attacks requires thinking in unusual ways and making original connections.
Consider the work of ethical hackers and penetration testers. These cybersecurity professionals come up with innovative ways to access their own organizations’ information systems, identifying weaknesses before cybercriminals can exploit them. The more creative these cybersecurity professionals are, the better prepared their organizations will be when they face innovative attackers.
3. Agility
In 2025, 38% of C-suite executives said that they were prioritizing talent that demonstrated agility, according to LinkedIn. Cybersecurity professionals need to be able to respond quickly to unfolding threats, improvising to address emergent issues as they arise. The longer cyber threats go unaddressed, the more damage they can do and the more difficult recovery may be.
4. Flexibility
Agility and flexibility work together: whereas agility concerns addressing a threat quickly and thoroughly, flexibility involves addressing multiple threats at once. Cybersecurity professionals need to be able to multitask on different projects as they establish security measures, address cyber attacks, and monitor for new cyber threats.
5. Resilience
Cybersecurity can be a high-stress field. While much of the work involves anticipating attacks and planning for incident responses, cybersecurity professionals will inevitably face days they do not expect. Cyber attacks can cause significant disruptions, and information security workers must be able to face unexpected challenges, recover from setbacks, and remain committed to their work under difficult conditions.
6. Collaboration
Cybersecurity professionals work across many different departments to create robust defensive measures. Breaking down silos between departments can accelerate threat detection and increase employees’ awareness of their role in protecting against attacks like phishing campaigns.
They also work with departments like information technology (IT), engineering, and operations to coordinate cyberdefenses. The ability to work well with different teams can have a significant impact on information security.
Develop Future-Ready Skills With TU
Technical cybersecurity skills will still be essential for the future, but they aren’t all that’s needed. While many of those technical skills will be outdated in the coming years, soft, human skills make technology even more effective.
The University of Tulsa’s online Master of Science (M.S.) in Cyber Security was one of the first cyber defense programs and has set the standard in cybersecurity career preparation since 2001. While students learn essential skills like cryptography and security auditing, they also hone their agility, flexibility, resilience, and other key future-ready skills.
With a fully online program designed for students to complete in as few as 20 months, cybersecurity professionals can advance both their technical and soft skills in a flexible, collaborative environment.
Become a leader in cybersecurity with TU.
Recommended Readings
Why Is Cybersecurity Important?
Everything You Need to Know About Cybersecurity Regulations
Understanding the Stages of the Cyber Kill Chain
Sources:
Indeed, “12 Must-Have Cybersecurity Skills (And How to Improve Them)”
National Institute of Standards and Technology, “Workplace Skills and the NICE Framework”
LinkedIn, “Work Change Report”
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Information Security Analysts
World Economic Forum, “AI Is Shifting the Workplace Skillset. But Human Skills Still Count”
