Exploring career in Cyber Security: India or The UK

By Varul Arora

In India, the Cyber Security domain is growing rapidly. There are many jobs available from entry-level to senior positions. The average package for cyber security analysts in India is Rs 5-6 lakh. To work in the UK, you need a work permit called “Tier 2 Visa”, which is a UK standard visa for international employees.

Cyber Security is a vast domain if you want to jump-start you career or switch later in the coming years. Some of the fields if you want to work in Cyber Security are:

1. Cyber Security Analyst: Cyber Security Analyst is responsible for protecting an organisation’s assets and infrastructure from unauthorised access. They need to evaluate the organisation’s security policies, security controls on a continuous basis to mitigate the risk. Cyber Security Analyst also generate security vulnerabilities report. They may also create the documentation for the organisation for the incident response and disaster recovery plan.
2. Network Security Analyst: Network Security Analyst job is similar to that of Cyber Security Analyst. The only difference is that the focus here is purely on Network Security. Their job role includes the following:

• Monitoring the network traffic and investigating the network breaches
• Analysing the security log events and generating the report of successful and unsuccessful intrusion attempts
• Finding vulnerabilities and providing recommendations to minimise them
• Maintaining and updating the firewall of the endpoint of the organisation.

3. Penetration Tester: The job role of a penetration tester is to exploit the vulnerabilities found in an organisation’s infrastructure, web applications, etc., in order to patch the vulnerabilities on continuous bases. If a black hat hacker finds these vulnerabilities, then the organisation may suffer huge cyber-attack.
4. OSINT Researcher: Open Source Intelligence Researcher or OSINT Researcher collects and analyse the data which is freely available such as Twitter location. They need to monitor hashtags, latest news feeds on radio, television hacking news, etc., and provide analysis of intelligence impact. 
5. Cyber Security Consultant: The work of cyber security consultants comprises all the work in the files of cyber security. It is not limited to any particular field. Cyber Security Consultant need to perform penetration testing of the organisation’s infrastructure. They also need to work on the network security of an organisation. Since you are a security consultant, you are expected to have deep knowledge of security. Therefore, person without any adequate knowledge in the field of security may find it difficult to work as a security consultant. 
6. Cyber Security Incident Responder: The role of cyber security incident responder is to provide first line response in case of any security issue. The incident responder will also be responsible for the development of the procedures that will be used as playbooks for security incidents.

All the job roles above mentioned are present in India as well as in the UK.

Cyber Security Sector in India

In India, the Cyber Security domain is growing rapidly. There are many jobs available from entry-level to senior positions. The average package for cyber security analysts in India is Rs 5-6 lakh.  To grow from security analyst to security consultant, it may require a certain amount of time as deep knowledge is required for the job role of a security consultant. You can also start working as Associate Cyber Security Consultant if you want to work in consultant domain. The security analyst majorly works on the security reports, monitoring of network traffic, etc., but the consultant will be going on client-side for security auditing, vulnerability assessment, etc., but all these job roles and their description varies from organisation to organisation.

Things to Remember Before Applying in The UK

To work in the UK, you need a work permit called “Tier 2 Visa”, which is a UK standard visa for international employees. There are two ways in which you can work in the UK. 

1. Search for Cyber Security jobs on job portals. When you find the suitable job matching your experience and the job criteria, then check from the Tier 2 sponsor list that whether the company can sponsor you Tier 2 visa or not. If they can sponsor, apply right away, but if they can’t there is no benefit of applying.
2. You can enrol for UK for bachelor’s or master’s as many universities in the UK offer placement programs. In the UK, the one-year internship is referred to as placement. Also, as per announcement of the new regulations, students graduating in or after 2021 will be awarded two-year post study work visa. The process and the structure of post study work visa is still quite not clear as the details has not been released.

About the Author:

Varul Arora is a founder of the UK-based startup TISEC. He completed MSc in Applied Cyber Security with one-year professional internship from Queen's University Belfast. He has also completed Post Graduate Diploma in Management in Supply Chain Management from Delhi School of Business.