AI skills in cybersecurity job postings doubled as junior hiring stalls The AI Workforce Consortium today reported that the share of cybersecurity job postings across the Group of Seven economies that ask for artificial intelligence skills doubled over the year, and junior hiring has not moved with them. This was the first in a new series of spotlight reports, this one on the impact of AI agents on cybersecurity. Job demand across the G7 grew 9.5% in the six months through March, measured against the same period a year earlier. The preceding half-year came in at 6.8%. AI skills turned up in 28.5% of those postings, against 14.2% a year before. The most recent month in the data ran at 29.7%. All of it covers G7 markets only. Sort the same postings by seniority and the picture changes. Senior-titled roles grew 65% in the six months through March. Growth in junior-titled roles was 5.9%. In the half-year before that they had shrunk slightly. The consortium calls this the experience paradox. Employers are asking for senior skills in jobs that are nominally entry level. Cisco Systems Inc., which founded the consortium, asked security leaders what they cannot find in entry-level candidates. Hands-on experience with AI agents was the top gap, at 49%. Technical cybersecurity depth was 48%, human skills 45%. Four percentage points separate the top and bottom of that list, so the three are presented as a cluster rather than a ranking. The same survey asked about budgets. Leaders picked up to three investment priorities for the next two years, and AI-powered defense was chosen most often, by 36%. People came fourth on 25%, level with threat intelligence. Anthropic PBC disclosed a cyber-espionage campaign in November 2025 in which its Claude model ran 80% to 90% of the operation under