Both the government and the private sector are scrambling for talent. Thousands of information-security jobs are going unfilled as the industry in the U.S. struggles with a shortage of properly trained professionals. By one estimate, there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2021.

With 11,000 IT and cybersecurity jobs currently unfilled in the state of Florida and state government agencies facing a very competitive talent market, the University of West Florida Center for Cybersecurity and the Florida Agency for State Technology (AST) have tackled the issue aggressively on their own and teamed up to build a pipeline of talented, trained cyber professionals who can support the state’s cyber resiliency and data security.

The cybersecurity skills shortage is not only real – it is one of the biggest challenges IT leaders face today. As the threat landscape becomes more complex, it’s difficult to find and hire trained personnel who are both cyber professionals and affordable. To make matters worse, long-term retention of those employees is almost impossible as they are always being poached by other companies.