If your MSP is feeling the pinch of labor and skill shortages, you’re not alone. For instance, the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC)² estimated that the global pool of security professionals needs to grow by 65% to meet the current demand.
While IT staffing issues affect almost every organization, MSPs are among the most impacted as their ability to deliver reliable, prompt, and outstanding IT and cybersecurity services depends on the availability of skillful and competent team members.
Let’s explore the current state of IT and cybersecurity staffing, the reasons behind the talent shortage, and how you can bridge the skill gaps to ensure your MSP’s ongoing success in today’s competitive business environment.
The current state of IT and cybersecurity staffing for MSPs
It has become increasingly difficult and costly for businesses to manage their complex IT architecture, stay ahead of cybercriminals, and comply with stringent government regulations. More companies are turning to MSPs to help them address their technology needs and protect their infrastructure.
Meanwhile, rapid digital transformation and the remote working trend have significantly increased the demand for IT and security services. Yet, the supply of skilled talent is constantly falling short.
The ongoing skill shortage hampers MSPs’ ability to scale operations, deliver high-quality services, and meet customer expectations. Many struggle with long response times, increased workloads, bottlenecks in delivering critical projects, and lower customer satisfaction.
Causes of IT and cybersecurity skill shortages
Here are the factors that contribute to IT and cybersecurity staffing issues faced by MSPs:
- Technological advancements and complexity: IT and cybersecurity solutions have advanced by leaps and bounds. Each discipline requires specialized skills — you can no longer hire a few generalists to cover all the bases and keep up with emerging technologies.
- Cybersecurity threat landscape: Cybercriminals are constantly evolving their techniques. MSPs must hire cybersecurity experts with in-depth knowledge to deliver effective security services. Yet, finding qualified professionals has become increasingly challenging.
- A lack of experienced candidates: Entry-level team members are more available but often don’t have the practical experience and expertise MSPs need. However, hiring experienced professionals is often difficult and costly in today’s competitive job market.
- High employee turnover: Many large organizations and prominent tech companies are luring talents with high salaries and extensive benefits, making it harder for smaller MSPs to retain skilled IT and cybersecurity personnel to deliver high-quality services and a consistent customer experience.
How MSPs can bridge skill gaps in IT and cybersecurity
Here’s how MSPs can overcome talent shortages and stay competitive in today’s market:
Provide internal training and development
Invest in training to upskill existing staff and encourage continuous learning. Offer your team the opportunities to attend workshops, seminars, and certification programs. You can enhance your employees’ expertise while boosting employee satisfaction to reduce turnover.
Expand your talent pool with distributed teams
Embrace remote resources to tap into a broader talent pool and attract seasoned professionals who prefer flexible work arrangements. You may also hire experts from overseas to leverage global talent, introduce diverse perspectives, and bolster your team’s capabilities.
Implement automation and AI integration
Automation software puts routine and repetitive tasks on autopilot, freeing your team to focus on high-value activities. Meanwhile, AI technologies can process vast amounts of data, predict potential issues, and conduct behavioral analyses to help your team prioritize alerts and focus on the most imminent threats.
Leverage IT staff augmentation services
Resource and staff augmentation provides you with IT and cybersecurity talent who can ramp up and integrate into your team within days. You can also combine long term resources and on demand specialists to meet shifting demand without high hiring costs and administrative overhead.
Choose the right staff augmentation services for your MSP
Staff augmentation is the most cost-effective way for MSPs to bridge skill gaps and meet customer requirements. But not every company understands the needs of MSPs. To maximize the benefits of IT staff augmentation, you should partner with a company specializing in helping MSPs fill talent gaps.
RedQor provides on-demand, MSP-ready, highly-skilled resources for MSPs to fill various roles, including NOC, DevOps, SOC, cybersecurity, and more.
Our streamlined integration process means you can integrate new team members into your operations quickly to scale up without the time and costs associated with traditional in-house recruitment. Learn more about our MSP staff augmentation services and get in touch to see how we can help.
