Can the University of Southampton deliver?
The big question here for the University of Southampton and its partners who have their own ACE-CSR facilities is how quickly can you begin to meet market demand? The early degrees are aimed at a three year cycle but will this be enough to give people the depth and breadth of knowledge to compete with today’s hackers?
The answer is almost certainly no. Other projects such as DECAMP are allowing universities to focus on one particular topic and deliver that using the Moodle online course system. This will allow students to pick the part of cyber security that works best for them and it should keep them engaged in the course.
Another question for the University of Southampton is what will it offer as a post degree course? If it does decide to go down that route quickly it could take advantage of people wanting to add cyber security to their resume. This should enable Southampton to offer local large enterprise customers an opportunity to develop their own staff training.
Addressing that enterprise and the growing number of data centres in the Southampton area will be important. Local companies will make it easy to get students practical experience. It will also ensure that the university captures the mature student market of IT security workers who are looking to improve their qualifications and their salaries.
A large part of the work in managing security is manipulating large data sets. Despite the shortage of data scientists, we may see some people changing degrees and bringing new skills to cyber security. At the post-degree level there is certainly a lot to be said for data scientists having cyber security skills that would make them very attractive targets for large consultancies. It should also deliver a fast track to becoming a Chief Information Security Office (CISO) and a seat on the board.
Conclusion
Making a move into the lucrative area of cyber security makes sense for the University of Southampton. There is certainly a high demand and a lot of money available to meet that demand.
Despite having three high profile sponsors for its Cyber Security Academy, success at Southampton will also be measured by the amount of money and prestige the CSA can deliver. With universities scrambling to soak up the money being thrown at the subject this may not be as easy as it looks.
One hopes that the quality of the degree far outstrips the ability of the current ACE-CSR website team to deliver their own blog site.
