Cybersecurity Careers and AI: The Squeeze and the Opening

Someone pulled Rich aside at a conference recently. Six years in IT, ready to break into security, and asking the question more people ask every week. Should I even bother right now? Here's what the data actually shows.

Episode 30 of Plaintext with Rich unpacks the cybersecurity career paradox of 2026. The bottom rung is getting squeezed as AI automates SOC analyst, threat intelligence, and incident response work. At the same time, demand for AI security engineers, prompt injection specialists, and model risk leads is climbing fast. The episode walks through what prompt injection actually looks like in plain language, why the 2025 ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study calls AI the field's top critical skill for the second year running, what BLS projects through 2034, and how the Pentagon's new Cyber Registered Apprenticeship Program is becoming a skills-based hiring blueprint other employers will copy.

If you're trying to break into cybersecurity right now, or you're already in the field and watching AI requirements sprout on every posting, this one is for you. It addresses the anxiety honestly. No doom. No false comfort.

Ten minutes. One topic. No panic.

Is there a topic/term you want me to discuss next? Text me!!

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