US Cybersecurity Job Postings Fall 26% as AI Security Engineer Demand Soars

What it is

CyberSN's Cybersecurity Jobs Report, as covered by SecurityWeek. It compares January–September 2026 US postings with the same months of earlier years: 235,786 postings, down 26.4% from 320,210 in 2025. The figures the summary lacks are the absolute counts, the per-function AI and remote splits, and the smaller roles that fell.

Method

• Source data is aggregated from JobSpikr, with duplicates removed.
• Postings are mapped to CyberSN's taxonomy of 45 functional roles in ten categories. This means counts reflect skills required, not employers' titles, so a "Penetration Tester" figure may not match a title-based search.
• Comparisons are same-months year over year, which avoids seasonal distortion.

Figures not in the summary

Largest role declines (2026 count):

Several of these are small pools, so a large percentage change can reflect a few hundred postings.

AI mentions by function (share of postings, change vs last year):

• Research: 32.7% (+11.7 points)
• Offense: 23.3% (+4.8)
• GRC: 19.8% (+2.1)
• Plan: 18.9% (+0.6)

Overall AI mentions are flat year over year (just under 15% vs 15.1%). The momentum is within the current period, reaching 20.0% in September.

Remote share by function: Sales 32.8%, GRC 31.2%, Offense 24.7%, Product Security 22.9%, Educate 22.8%, Research 21.9%, Defense 21.3%.

What to do

• Hiring or career planning: The AI signal is concentrated in Research and Offense. Treat AI literacy as a requirement there, not just in the new AI Security Engineer role.
• CISO figures: The 2026 count (2,832) is almost identical to 2024 (2,808), so the drop mostly reflects an unusually strong 2025. CISO postings also rose 19.5% from Q2 to Q3, which argues against reading a downward trend.
• Pentest and threat hunting: These declines are large but sit on small bases (3,063 and 1,013).

Caveats

• The report is "what, not why". It offers no causes beyond a remark that director and CISO postings track how boards treat cyber accountability.
• SecurityWeek itself says it is difficult to draw specific employment conclusions from posting counts.
• Posting volume is not hiring volume, and the page gives no absolute counts for AI Security Engineer or Cyber Data Scientist, so the +268.3% and +203.5% growth rates have no stated base.