US Cybersecurity Job Postings Fall 26% as AI Security Engineer Demand Soars

CyberSN’s Cybersecurity Jobs Report provides visibility into the US cybersecurity job market. It’s a mixed bag.

Data for CyberSN’s jobs report is aggregated from JobSpikr (with duplicates removed). The various job titles are then analyzed and assigned to CyberSN’s taxonomy of 45 cybersecurity functional roles in ten categories. The result is an assessment of the job market by skills required rather than by the recruiting companies’ role titles.

Analyzing this dataset shows the current cybersecurity skills demand. Comparing 2026 with the same months of earlier years highlights emerging (or declining) demand for specific roles.

Overall, there has been a decline in cybersecurity job postings to a new four-year low: 235,786 postings between January and September 2026 (down 26.4% from the 320,210 recorded in the same period of 2025). 

While the total number of job postings has declined, there remain emerging and notable specific numbers. For example, two specific AI and data roles have seen dramatic growth: AI Security Engineer demand has increased by 268.3% while Cyber Data Scientist demand has grown 203.5% over last year.

Clearly, the need for a general understanding of artificial intelligence remains high. Just under 15% of all job postings now reference AI, which is comparable to the 15.1% recorded in the same period last year. There is, however, a noticeable increase in momentum within the current period (peaking at 20.0% in September 2026). 

The cybersecurity functions that most reference a need for AI understanding include Research (32.7% of postings, up 11.7 points from last year); Offense (23.3% of postings, up 4.8 points); GRC (19.8% of postings, up 2.1 points); and Plan (18.9% of postings, up 0.6 points).

Remote working is another area of interest. The top functional areas include Sales (32.8%), GRC (31.2%), Offense (24.7%), Product Security (22.9%), Educate (22.8%), Research (21.9%), and Defense (21.3%).

While there are some potential winners in this analyzed period, the overall decline in numbers means there are more potential losers. Leading the loss of roles is Cyber Insider Threat Analyst (down by 55.6% to 1,088 postings); Cyber Risk Analyst (down by 51.5% to 4,031 postings); Penetration Tester (down by 45.9% to 3,063 postings); Cybersecurity Lead (down by 41.0% to 4,688 postings); Threat Hunter (down by 40.0% to 1,013 postings); Cybersecurity Project Manager (down by 39.4% to 783 postings); and Chief Information Security Officer including CSO, BSO and ISO (down by 38.9% to 2,832 postings).

Much of the CISO decline reflects an unusually strong 2025, since the 2026 figure (2,832) is almost exactly the same as 2024’s (2,808), and CISO postings rose 19.5% from Q2 to Q3.

The report focuses on the numbers of job listings rather than any specific intent to understand the cause of any change. This is a ‘what’ not ‘why’ report. “Job titles are noisy,” it declares. “This report reads every posting through the CyberSN Taxonomy, so demand is counted by the work being asked for, not by the title on the listing.”

Nevertheless, a few possible indications around the more commonly recognized job titles can be found. For example, for leadership and CISO positions, the report comments, “director and CISO postings move with how boards are treating cyber accountability.”

Overall, it is difficult to draw specific employment potential indications from CyberSN’s figures on job listings, but an AI security specialist may be in luck. Budding CISOs may need to be patient.

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