Mexico is increasingly digitizing services, payments, business operations, and public systems. However, as more processes migrate to the internet and artificial intelligence gains ground within companies and institutions, a less visible problem is also growing: the country lacks sufficient qualified personnel to protect this infrastructure from digital threats.
Although Mexican universities graduate thousands of professionals in technology fields each year, very few end up specializing in cybersecurity. The result is a market where critical vacancies are increasing, and public and private organizations continue to struggle to find enough qualified professionals to fill strategic positions.
According to information from La Jornada, Mexico needs approximately 83,000 cybersecurity specialists, but currently only has about 6,000 professionals trained in this discipline, according to the study “Digital Talent Snapshot: Specialization, Gaps, and Opportunities in Cybersecurity,” prepared by IQSEC in conjunction with the consulting firm Select.
The problem is not a lack of engineers, but a lack of specialists.
At first glance, the problem might seem like a general lack of technological talent, but the diagnosis tells a different story. According to IQSEC, Mexico generated a surplus of 278,000 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) professionals in 2025. Even so, companies continue to struggle to fill critical vacancies related to digital security.
The reason is that only 1.4% of university students enrolled in ICT-related programs specifically focused on cybersecurity. According to the analysis, less than 2% of available talent has specialized training in an area that has become strategic for protecting data, operations, and digital infrastructure.
The lack of specialists not only represents a recruitment problem. The study warns that this shortage increases the exposure of companies and institutions to operational risks, slows down incident response capabilities, and compromises the resilience of critical systems in a context where attacks such as ransomware, data theft, and breaches of digital infrastructure are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
This shortage is already beginning to affect the value of talent. According to IQSEC, cybersecurity specialists earn average salaries of 51,386 pesos per month, a figure higher than the national ICT market average. This data also highlights how difficult it has become for organizations to find technical professionals with experience in network security, vulnerability analysis, and incident response.
However, the challenge doesn’t end at universities. The study indicates that only 35% of ICT professionals in Mexico have an advanced level of English, an essential skill for accessing international certifications, technical documentation, and specialized cybersecurity tools.
The problem also has a structural dimension. The analysis, based on data from the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE) by INEGI (the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography), found that only 38% of ICT graduates manage to find technical positions, while the rest end up in administrative, commercial, or service areas far removed from the core technology sector.
Educational institutions have begun to respond to the sector’s growth. According to Select, the number of university programs specializing in cybersecurity increased from just 20 in 2020 to 129 in 2025. Nevertheless, business demand continues to grow at an even faster pace, driven by accelerated digitalization and the adoption of Artificial Intelligence within public and private organizations.
Added to this is another shift within the labor market. While only 18% of job openings in the general ICT sector require on-site work, in cybersecurity this figure rises to 41%, due to the need to operate critical infrastructure directly on-site. Furthermore, the sector maintains a significant gender gap: 77% of students are men and only 23% are women.
In this context, the challenge for Mexico no longer seems limited to training more technology professionals, but rather to developing specialists capable of protecting strategic systems in an increasingly digitally dependent economy.
Source: xataka
