Growing Cyber Talent Through Public Private Partnerships 2025

Growing Cyber Talent Through Public–Private Partnerships May 2025 Executive summary The rapid evolution of cyberthreats has created a growing demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals. However, many organizations and regions, particularly in the Global South, face significant challenges in attracting, training and retaining talent. Limited resources, brain drain and remote work opportunities leave rural areas and smaller economies more vulnerable in the face of an increasingly complex cybersecurity landscape. To address these challenges, public–private partnerships (PPPs) are emerging as a promising approach to cybersecurity workforce development. By using the strengths of both public-sector and private-sector actors, PPPs can facilitate targeted initiatives that enhance skills development, expand career opportunities and build sustainable cybersecurity talent pipelines. The World Economic Forum’s Bridging the Cyber Skills Gap initiative has developed this white paper, Growing Cyber Talent Through Public–Private Partnerships, to support the design and implementation of PPPs for cyber talent development. This paper explores the key benefits of PPPs for both public and private actors, including financial sustainability, improved access to new markets and the development of critical infrastructure for cybersecurity training and education. At the same time, it highlights important challenges, such as limited awareness of local needs, differing work cultures between sectors and difficulties in aligning long-term goals, all of which can hinder the effectiveness of these partnerships. To maximize the benefits and overcome challenges, the paper identifies three essential foundations for establishing successful PPPs: Identifying the right stakeholders: Effective PPPs require selecting appropriate external and internal partners to drive the effort and building trust through transparency and open communication. Creating tangible outcomes: PPPs should focus on delivering measurable results, such as creating training centres or designing structured training programmes, while remaining adaptable to evolving cybersecurity and workforce needs. Ensuring effective project management: Strong governance and project execution depend on thorough demand assessments, well-defined roles and responsibilities for all involved stakeholders and performance metrics that drive accountability and long-term success. Moreover, building on the Strategic Cybersecurity Talent Framework, the paper also provides an overview of the different activities that PPPs could undertake to attract talent into cybersecurity, educate and train cybersecurity professionals, recruit the right cybersecurity talent and retain cybersecurity professionals. By drawing on shared resources and expertise, PPPs can strengthen digital resilience, create employment pathways and play a vital role in building a skilled and diverse cybersecurity workforce.By drawing on the strengths of public and private actors, public–private partnerships can create targeted efforts that advance cybersecurity workforce development. Growing Cyber Talent Through Public–Private Partnerships 3