For years, cybersecurity leaders have warned about workforce strain. In its 2024 Cybersecurity Workforce Study, ISC2 estimated the current global cybersecurity workforce gap at 4.8 million. In its most recent 2025 study, ISC2 did not publish a specific global gap estimate, instead emphasizing that organizations increasingly view skills shortages and experience gaps rather than raw headcount as the more pressing challenge. Taken together, the data suggest workforce constraints remain, even as the way they are measured continues to evolve.
But when organizations experience disruption, incidents, audits, or regulatory pressure, a different issue tends to more clearly emerge. The more consequential challenge is not whether a CISO can be appointed, but whether the person stepping into the role is ready to lead at the executive level during an incident, regulatory review, or board-level scrutiny.
Not every organization formally designates a Chief Information Security Officer with clear executive authority. In many cases, the CISO function exists within a CIO role, a security director role, or a hybrid risk or technology position. That approach can work adequately when conditions are stable. During an incident, regulatory review, or board scrutiny, however, the absence of clearly-defined authority and decision rights becomes visible. Continuity risk shows up not because no one is responsible, but because accountability and executive readiness were never clearly defined and reinforced.
Only then does the pattern become clear. The emerging risk is not due to a lack of CISOs; it instead points to a readiness and continuity challenge.
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Security leadership remains a high-experience profession. Most CISOs only arrive in the role after years of developing technical credibility, operational judgment, business fluency, and executive presence. While demographic data on Fortune 500 CISOs is not refreshed frequently, a widely-cited Altrata analysis from 2023 reported an average CISO age of 52. The precise number matters less than what it signals about the depth of experience typically required for the role. Many organizations draw security leaders from seasoned cohorts.
This is not an age discussion. It is a pipeline discussion.
In Heidrick and Struggles' 2024 Global CISO Organization and Compensation Survey, 53 percent of CISOs said they had an internal successor who was as strong as or stronger than a candidate they could hire externally. That finding continues to surface in recent industry discussions, underscoring persistent challenges in security leadership succession. It does not mean organizations lack potential successors. It reflects a common concern that many internal candidates are not fully prepared for the scope of executive, operational, and crisis leadership the role requires.
Many organizations say they conduct succession planning, and in a general HR sense, that may be true. CISO succession, however, is not simply about identifying a high performer and promoting them. It requires executive readiness, board confidence, crisis leadership, and the ability to translate technical risk into business decisions. Those capabilities can take years to develop.
At the same time, many organizations choose to remain lean. They do not staff a deputy CISO or equivalent role, and assume talent management and recruiting will fill gaps when needed. That approach can work, but it depends heavily on timing, market conditions, and organizational stability.
CISO tenure remains relatively short across many industries. Recent leadership and security publications, including Korn Ferry and Dark Reading, continue to cite average tenures in the range of 18 to 26 months, and frequently link turnover to role intensity, expanding scope, and mounting executive expectations.
Short tenure does not automatically create risk, but when combined with thin benches and lean operating models, it compresses the margin for error during leadership transitions. Strategy can stall; governance cadence can slip; and risk decisions can slow down at precisely the wrong time.
Leadership transitions are not vacancies; they are handoffs. Handoffs fail not because there is no successor, but because the transfer of authority was never clearly defined or practiced.
An organization may still appoint a CISO quickly. The challenge is whether that leader can assume the role with minimal disruption to governance, strategy, and risk decision-making.
Return-to-office requirements add another constraint. Cybersecurity leadership has become geographically portable, and many organizations expanded their recruiting footprint during remote and hybrid work. Strict location requirements narrow that footprint again.
Research summarized by Baylor University found an average 13 to 14 percent increase in abnormal turnover following return-to-office mandate announcements. Separately, IANS Research and Artico Search's 2025 Cybersecurity Staff Compensation Benchmark release highlighted that return-to-office mandates tend to create hiring and retention challenges in the cybersecurity talent market.
This does not mean return-to-office is wrong. It does mean it is a tradeoff that needs to be carefully considered. When flexibility decreases, the leaders most able to leave are often those with the greatest market mobility. That reduction in leadership mobility further compresses transitions and raises continuity risk.
Workforce and leadership metrics vary widely by source and methodology. Some measure open roles, others focus on skills gaps, and many rely on survey data. These figures should be viewed as directional indicators rather than precise counts.
Despite differences in methodology, the underlying trend is consistent across industries. Leadership turnover, uneven succession readiness, and growing reliance on external hiring make transitions harder to manage smoothly. The risk lies less in whether a replacement exists and more in the preparation of that replacement.
As transitions become more compressed, organizations increasingly turn to virtual or fractional CISOs. In the right circumstances, this is a rational decision. vCISOs can provide immediate leadership coverage, stabilize governance, and bring experience from multiple environments.
What they cannot do on their own is eliminate the need for intentional leadership development and clearly-defined executive accountability within the organization. The CISO role is deeply relational and depends on sustained trust with executives, the board, and operational leaders.
For many organizations, a vCISO is most effective when used as part of a clearly-designed continuity strategy, whether that involves transitional coverage, long-term fractional leadership in smaller environments, or a bridge to a full-time appointment. What determines effectiveness is not the employment model; it is clarity of authority, continuity planning, and governance alignment.
Four actions reduce continuity risk without abandoning lean models.
1. Treat CISO continuity as an enterprise risk
Define interim authority, decision rights, and board communication expectations before a transition occurs. If you do not have a formal CISO, make the accountable executive explicit and document their authority, especially for risk acceptance and incident leadership.
2. Be honest about succession readiness
Naming a successor is not the same as preparing one. Identify the person who could step in today and the one who is progressing toward executive readiness but requires further development in board engagement, crisis leadership, or enterprise risk decision-making, and plan accordingly.
3. If you operate lean, design for transitions
If a deputy CISO role is not viable, pre-plan vCISO coverage, document governance, and clearly define who assumes authority and decision rights during leadership gaps.
4. Factor flexibility into resilience decisions
Return-to-office policies should be evaluated not only for culture and collaboration, but also for their impact on leadership availability during transitions.
There will almost always be someone willing to step into the CISO role. The real question is whether that leader is prepared for the full executive and governance demands the role now carries.
Organizations that manage the transition effectively focus less on titles and more on continuity. They build readiness before they need it, and treat leadership transition as a resilience concern rather than a staffing problem.