We look at what trends might impace risk jobs and resilience jobs in 2017. Plus we review if the predictions we made at the start of 2016 came to fruition.
Healthcare is the biggest focus
Healthcare records are now worth more on the dark web than bank records. Healthcare companies in the US are being targeted by hackers daily and there is concern in the UK that our NHS does not have the right controls in place to keep records safe. There has already been talk of new roles within healthcare for risk management jobs and security jobs and we expect this to be the in-demand sector for 2017.
Cyber risk tops list of threats
Cyber and data protection is now the focus of many within corporate governance. It has been a top 10 business risk for the past few years and cyber risk is moving steadily up the list. GDPR is bringing this to the fore and mitigating cyber risk is sure to feature high on the agenda for risk professionals. Those in risk jobs, who haven’t already, will need to build strong relationships with the security team.
Risk management over profit
Risk appetite varies considerably between organisations but the trend seems to be prioritising risk management over pursuing profit at all costs. Fines within financial services have forced companies to prioritise their conduct. 2016 was also a year of shocks and the science behind our predictions has been called into question. Risk models are producing vastly different results based on external factors, more so than ever before. In such an uncertain world, we expect risk management to triumph and risk appetite to decrease.
Physical security threats
Sadly 2016 was a year of further terror attacks in Europe and the US. This will lead to companies evaluating their own security processes and their risk. We have already seen some high profile companies hire additional people into crisis management jobs, resilience jobs and risk jobs as a result. As this threat does not seem to be diminishing, we expect to see an increase in jobs in this area.
How did we fair in 2016?
Jobs in new organisations – We said with the rise of the challenger bank and building societies there would be more resilience jobs in new companies. This did happen with some of these companies recruiting in large numbers. However, it was consulting firms that dominated the recruitment in this space.
All about IT – We said that IT risk would be the job for 2016. This exceeded our expectations as nearly all the risk jobs we saw, had an IT element to them and IT audit and IT risk jobs almost doubled in 2016, from 2015 numbers.
See the full article on the BeecherMadden website.