IT Security vacancies increased by 6.2% during the year ending 30 April 2017, according to the Association of Professional Staffing Companies.

The data from APSCo shows there was high demand for IT Security staff from the Accountancy (40%), Retail and Education sectors, all of whom hold huge amounts of sensitive data. While the largest industry increase in terms of vacancies came from Professional Services, driven by the demand for accountancy jobs.

Among regions, vacancies within the IT Security sector were up 12% over the year in the Greater London region, accounting for more than half of UK vacancies (51%). Meanwhile, the figures also found that Yorkshire and Humber had the fastest growth in vacancies with a 41% increase in demand, despite accounting for 5% of the UK’s vacancies in this sector.

“Our figures show that IT Security is taking on a life of its own, challenged only by the financial services sector, as it continues to expand,” Ann Swain, chief executive of APSCo, said.”

“This growing trend is backed by Kroll’s 2017 Annual Global Fraud and Risk Report where 92% of UK executives said their firm had suffered a cyber security attack in the last 12 months, which is a huge number of attacks for firms to be subjected to,” Swain said. “It’s clear that firms, in whatever business they are in, are taking this growing threat seriously and looking at increasing their staffing levels, to cope with the higher threat levels.”