Achieving a strong foundation for educating Canada’s cybersecurity workforce is paramount in addressing the skills gap in the Canadian cybersecurity space and enabling a fulfilling career for those interested in cybersecurity.

These Learning Outcomes are intended to inform training and education providers on suggested learning outcomes for candidates pursuing cybersecurity careers. The learning outcomes were designed to help ensure that candidates looking to be employed in an organizational cybersecurity team have demonstrated competence in cybersecurity foundations and the general work domain prior to pursuing specialization.

Developed by a national and diverse group of education and industry professionals, the Learning Outcomes are intended to:

• Aid educators in the development of training and education criteria to meet the changing and evolving cybersecurity workforce needs
• Provide an important bridge between entry level and specialized work that has not typically been available in post-secondary education programs to date
• Directly support cybersecurity entry level requirements for today’s cybersecurity careers

How do these Learning Outcomes support a career in Cybersecurity?

The authors ensured the learning pathway includes initial learning requirements that apply to all candidates entering the cybersecurity field regardless of domain.  These are considered the cybersecurity foundations supporting cross-functional competencies for the cybersecurity occupation.

Cybersecurity foundations are followed by functional work area learning outcomes that are aligned with the Canadian Cybersecurity Skills Framework major work categories: Oversee & Govern, Design & Develop, Operate & Maintain, and Protect and Defend. These delve more deeply into cybersecurity work within the identified work category that are needed to effectively function in that domain

Who will benefit from an education aligned to these Cybersecurity Learning Outcomes?

Upon completion of these learning outcomes candidates should be able to fill entry level cybersecurity roles within an organization in that functional area/work category. This also provides an important bridge between entry level and specialized work that has not typically been available in post-secondary education programs.

• Educators will have a defined set of Learning Outcomes to help deliver common standards in their cybersecurity education programs across Canada.
• Industry, who recognizes the challenges of today’s skills gap in cybersecurity, will have confidence that future employees will hit the ground running and start meeting their organization’s cybersecurity needs,
• Students and Job Seekers can more quickly find meaningful job opportunities when their completed training provides them with the skills that employers need. Students of all levels will be able to progress into more specialized areas of cybersecurity or pursue related management roles across any industry or sector.

Once these work category learning outcomes have been achieved, candidates may continue to build on their capabilities in that work category as a generalist or progress into specialized often more technical cybersecurity work.

Cybersecurity Learning Outcomes