The demand for cybersecurity professionals remains strong across the United States, new data from CyberSeek released at the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education Conference & Expo 2017 reveals.

U.S. employers posted 285,681 cybersecurity job openings during the 12-month period that ended in September 2017, according to CyberSeek, a free workforce and career resource developed jointly by CompTIA, the leading technology industry association, and labor market analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies.

"The demand for skilled and certified cybersecurity professionals is surging from coast to coast and border to border," said Matthew Sigelman, chief executive officer at Burning Glass Technologies. "In every state the demand for cybersecurity talent significantly outstrips the supply of available workers."

CyberSeek's alignment with the National Institute of Standards and Technology's NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework provides unprecedented visibility into the job roles most in demand. The data reveals that the categories of Operate and Maintain, Securely Provision, Protect and Demand, and Analyze account for the bulk of the job postings.

"The range of job roles cited in CyberSeek reflects the multi-faceted approach that's required to defend against an ever-expanding cybersecurity threat landscape," said Todd Thibodeaux, CompTIA president and CEO. "The reality is that everyone needs some level of cybersecurity knowledge and skills, whether they have 'security' in their job title or not."

According to CyberSeek, the metro regions with the largest absolute number of cybersecurity job openings are Washington, D.C., New York, and Chicago. The new data also reveals that cybersecurity job openings are most heavily concentrated in the Washington, D.C., Baltimore and San Jose markets.

New CyberSeek features bring more clarity to nation's cybersecurity workforce

Several new features have been added in the second iteration of CyberSeek to provide greater visibility into the supply and demand of cybersecurity workers at the national, state and metropolitan levels.

One key new feature of the CyberSeek heat map is the ability to track data on cybersecurity job demand overall, and within the public and private sectors. For the 12 months ending in September 2017, public sector entities posted 12,100 job openings for cybersecurity workers. That's in addition to the estimated 31,634 public sector workers employed in cybersecurity-related jobs in 2016.

The CyberSeek career pathway, which maps to the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework, has been enhanced to help both individuals interested in cybersecurity careers and employers looking to fill job openings.

The expanded, interactive career pathway includes information on 10 core cybersecurity roles and 5 tech jobs that often serve as "feeder roles" to cybersecurity positions. These feeder job roles are functional domains that have significant skill overlap with some of the core cybersecurity roles and represent potential stepping stones into cybersecurity.