By Satya HemanthUpdated August 17, 202611 min read16 viewsFor a fresher watching the Indian technology job market in 2026, the headlines can feel contradictory. One report says IT hiring is slowing. Another says artificial intelligence is eliminating routine work. Then, almost in the same week, cybersecurity companies announce expansion plans and employers complain that they cannot find enough people with the right security skills.
All three can be true at the same time.
India’s broader IT-BPM hiring environment has become noticeably more cautious. Net workforce additions during the first half of FY27 are projected to fall by more than 26% compared with the same period a year earlier, reflecting tighter hiring, automation and changing client demand. At the same time, specialised capabilities such as AI, cloud and cybersecurity continue to receive attention because companies cannot simply stop protecting systems, customer information and increasingly AI-driven infrastructure.
That makes cybersecurity attractive, particularly to students worried about shrinking entry-level software opportunities. But there is an important reality behind the optimistic headlines: cybersecurity is not an easy escape route from a difficult IT job market.
Companies need security talent, but they increasingly want people who can investigate real problems rather than candidates who have only completed a short ethical-hacking course.
A company can postpone a website redesign. It can delay an internal software project. It cannot comfortably decide to stop caring about ransomware, cloud misconfiguration, data leakage, identity theft or attacks on its AI systems.
Security has gradually moved from being treated as an IT support function to becoming part of business risk.
The shift is especially visible as Indian companies adopt cloud platforms, software-as-a-service tools and generative AI. Palo Alto Networks recently said AI security is beginning to appear as a separate budget item within Indian enterprises, driven by concerns such as unauthorised AI use, sensitive-data leakage and the behaviour of autonomous AI agents.
International cybersecurity companies are also expanding Indian operations. N-able opened a Global Capability Centre in Bengaluru in June and said it planned to increase its local workforce by at least 50% by the end of 2026, specifically citing India’s AI and cybersecurity talent pool.
The broader Indian technology industry is therefore not simply moving from “hiring” to “not hiring.” It is moving from large-volume recruitment towards more selective recruitment around skills businesses cannot easily automate or ignore. Reuters has reported the same pattern across multinational operations in India, where companies are using AI to improve productivity while continuing to seek niche expertise such as cybersecurity.
Imagine two engineering graduates.
The first spends six months completing five cybersecurity courses. His résumé includes ethical hacking, penetration testing, cloud security and several certificates. During an interview, however, he struggles when asked a simple question: What actually happens after an employee clicks a phishing link?
He knows the word “phishing,” but cannot explain what logs he would inspect, how credentials might be compromised, how an attacker could move through the network or what the security team should do first.
The second candidate has fewer certificates. She installed Linux on an old laptop, created a small home lab, learned basic networking, analysed authentication logs, practised identifying suspicious PowerShell activity and documented a mock phishing investigation on GitHub. She may not know every security tool, but she can explain her reasoning.
The second candidate is much closer to what employers increasingly mean when they say they want “job-ready” talent.
A 2026 Cyberbit skills report found that 83% of cybersecurity roles it analysed required hands-on experience, while even 75% of junior positions expected it. Security-tool proficiency appeared in 93% of roles, showing how difficult it has become to enter the field using theory alone.
This is the same skills gap we have been discussing across H View’s careers coverage: the market does not necessarily have a shortage of people interested in technology. It has a shortage of people who can demonstrate useful capability.
Cybersecurity marketing often begins with dramatic visuals: code scrolling across screens, penetration-testing dashboards and someone “hacking” into a system within minutes.
Real security work is usually much less cinematic.
Before somebody can protect a network, they need to understand how devices communicate. Concepts such as IP addresses, ports, DNS, HTTP, firewalls, VPNs and TCP/IP are not old-fashioned topics that AI has made irrelevant. They are foundational.
Linux is equally important because a large amount of cloud and server infrastructure runs on Linux-based systems. A junior analyst who understands permissions, processes, log files, SSH and basic shell commands can usually learn security tools more effectively than someone who knows how to run a scanner but does not understand what its results mean.
This is one area where students often waste time. They start with Kali Linux because it looks like “cybersecurity,” then memorise penetration-testing commands without first learning networking or operating systems.
The order should usually be reversed.
Understand the system first. Learn how it fails second. Then learn how to attack or defend it.
For many freshers, a Security Operations Centre, or SOC, can provide a realistic first cybersecurity role.
SOC analysts monitor alerts, investigate unusual activity, analyse logs and help determine whether an event is harmless or evidence of a real attack. The job can be repetitive at the beginning, but it exposes candidates to the operational side of security rather than only theory.
A junior analyst might receive an alert showing that an employee account logged in from Hyderabad and then, twenty minutes later, from another country. The analyst must ask whether this is a VPN, legitimate travel, stolen credentials or a false positive.
That investigation requires several abilities at once: understanding authentication, checking logs, looking at IP information, communicating with the user and deciding whether to escalate the incident.
This kind of thinking is difficult to demonstrate with a multiple-choice certificate.
It is also why critical thinking and collaboration are appearing alongside technical knowledge in security hiring. Cyberbit’s 2026 report found that cybersecurity positions increasingly span multiple domains rather than remaining isolated within one narrow speciality.
A decade ago, a security learner could reasonably begin almost entirely with local networks and traditional servers.
That is much harder now.
Businesses increasingly store workloads, databases and identities in AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud. Security mistakes can therefore involve a publicly exposed storage bucket, an overprivileged user account or a badly configured API rather than somebody physically breaking into an office network.
A fresher does not need to become a cloud architect immediately. They should understand how cloud identity works, why least-privilege access matters, what multi-factor authentication protects and how cloud logs can reveal suspicious behaviour.
The same principle applies to containers and APIs. Companies are building more connected systems, so cybersecurity employees increasingly need to understand how applications are deployed rather than treating security as something that happens after development is finished.
Indian skills-gap research is pointing in the same direction. A recent SANS Institute and Data Security Council of India study reported that employers are struggling particularly with AI and machine-learning security talent, while also highlighting weaknesses in hands-on experience, scripting and cross-domain expertise.
Artificial intelligence is creating new security problems while also automating parts of existing security work.
Employees can accidentally upload confidential documents into public AI tools. Attackers can use generative systems to make phishing messages more convincing. Organisations deploying internal AI agents must decide what data those agents can access and what actions they are allowed to perform.
Security teams therefore need people who understand both traditional controls and new AI-related risks.
The SANS-DSCI research found that 57% of surveyed cybersecurity firms struggled to recruit AI/ML security specialists, making it one of the hardest skill areas to fill.
That does not mean a fresher should immediately declare themselves an “AI Security Engineer.”
A better path is to first understand normal cybersecurity well enough to recognise what AI changes.
If you do not understand authentication, access control, data protection and application security, adding the phrase “AI security” to your résumé will not create much value.
Certificates can help, especially when they provide structure for learning or are recognised by the employer you are targeting.
They are not a substitute for competence.
A student might benefit more from one carefully chosen certification combined with a home lab and documented investigations than from purchasing five programmes in a year.
Employers themselves appear increasingly interested in skill development beyond traditional pipelines. Fortinet’s 2026 cybersecurity skills-gap research found widespread use of internships, apprenticeships and partnerships to build cyber talent, reflecting the difficulty organisations have filling roles through conventional hiring alone.
When evaluating a course, ask what you will actually be able to do after completing it.
Can you investigate logs?
Can you harden a Linux server?
Can you explain a phishing incident?
Can you detect suspicious login behaviour?
Can you write a simple Python script to process repetitive security data?
If the course gives you a certificate but leaves those answers unchanged, its career value may be limited.
A sensible beginner path does not require expensive hardware or a ₹1 lakh training programme.
Start with networking and Linux. Build a small lab using virtual machines. Learn Git and basic Python. Study Windows and Linux logs. Practise simple incident-response scenarios. Then add introductory cloud security and a SIEM platform such as Splunk, Elastic or another accessible alternative.
The important part is documenting what you do.
Instead of writing “knowledge of phishing analysis” on a résumé, publish a short project showing a mock phishing incident, what evidence you inspected, how you identified the malicious behaviour and what remediation you would recommend.
That gives an interviewer something concrete to discuss.
It also helps you discover whether you actually enjoy cybersecurity. Security careers often involve investigation, documentation and long periods of methodical analysis. Someone attracted only by the idea of “ethical hacking” may find the daily work very different from what they imagined.
Cybersecurity attracts students partly because it sounds exciting and secure at a time when many traditional IT careers feel uncertain. That makes young job seekers vulnerable to institutes promising a six-month transformation into a highly paid ethical hacker.
The field deserves more honest expectations.
A fresher does not need to know everything, but they should be allowed to learn gradually without being made to feel that one expensive certification is the difference between success and failure. Building confidence through small practical projects can be much healthier than constantly comparing yourself with people online claiming to have mastered ten security tools before graduation.
The best early question is not, “Which cybersecurity certification earns the highest salary?” It is, “Do I enjoy understanding why systems behave strangely and figuring out what happened?”
Cybersecurity demand is real, but specialisation is becoming more important.
AI can already filter alerts, summarise incidents and automate some routine analysis. That means the value of a security professional increasingly comes from judgement: deciding which signal matters, understanding business impact and responding correctly when automated tools are uncertain.
This is also why foundational knowledge remains valuable even when tools change. Someone who understands networks, operating systems, cloud identity and attack patterns can learn a new security product. Someone trained only on a product interface may struggle when the interface disappears.
In 2026, the strongest security career strategy is not chasing the newest tool. It is building fundamentals that allow you to keep learning whichever tool comes next.
Cybersecurity is one of the more promising areas inside a technology job market that is becoming increasingly selective, but “high demand” should not be confused with “easy entry.”
India still needs security talent, and companies are investing in cloud security, threat detection, AI security and specialised defensive capabilities.
For freshers, however, the opportunity belongs less to the person with the longest certificate section and more to the candidate who can demonstrate that they understand systems and can investigate a problem.
Learn networking. Get comfortable with Linux. Understand logs. Build small labs. Add cloud knowledge. Use AI tools, but do not let them think for you.
Cybersecurity may offer better resilience than some routine technology roles, but it still rewards the same thing good technology careers have always rewarded: curiosity backed by practical ability.
Cybersecurity remains an important specialist area even while broader IT hiring has become more cautious. Companies continue investing in areas such as cloud security, threat detection and AI security, although candidates still need practical skills to compete successfully.
Yes, but the definition of “experience” is changing. Employers increasingly expect junior candidates to demonstrate hands-on ability through labs, internships, projects or security tools even when they have not held a full-time cybersecurity position before.
SOC analyst, junior security analyst and selected security-support roles can provide realistic entry points because they expose candidates to alerts, logs and incident investigation. The best starting role still depends on the candidate’s networking, Linux and analytical abilities.
Not every security job requires advanced programming, but basic scripting is increasingly useful. Python, PowerShell or shell scripting can help automate repetitive tasks, analyse data and understand how systems behave.
No. Ethical hacking and penetration testing are only parts of cybersecurity. The broader field includes security operations, incident response, governance and risk, cloud security, application security, identity management, threat intelligence and many other areas.
AI is likely to automate some repetitive tasks, such as alert triage and basic analysis, while also creating new security problems that organizations need people to manage. Current hiring trends suggest growing demand for professionals who can work with AI-enhanced security systems rather than simply compete against them.
Satya Hemanth is the founder of H View and writes on careers, sports, leadership, digital trends, and practical decision-making. His articles focus on clear explanations, real-world examples, and useful insights for students, young professionals, and everyday readers.
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