UK Cyber Security Council Opens Membership Application Process

The UK Cyber Security Council has today announced it has opened its membership application process.

The self-regulatory body for the cybersecurity education and skills sector, which launched as an independent entity earlier this year, is now inviting applications from eligible organizations throughout the UK. These are any organizations “with an interest in promoting, supporting and developing the cybersecurity profession.”

Those organizations whose membership applications are accepted will be allowed to nominate representatives to the Council’s committees, focusing on the core activities of professional standards, qualifications and careers, ethics and diversity.

Don MacIntyre, interim CEO for the UK Cyber Security Council, commented: “Professional standards, qualifications and careers, ethics and diversity are the stand-out issues facing the profession and its practitioners. Businesses with an interest in cyber security will never have a better opportunity to influence the direction and development of these and other issues than to join the Council and getting involved.”

The Council added that it would be putting in place engagement mechanisms to gather views from member organizations and use these insights to inform activities and decisions. MacIntyre said: “It is only through building an actively engaged community of members that the Council will be able to speak as the representative voice for the UK’s cyber security profession. With every new membership, our voice becomes clearer, louder and increasingly more difficult to be ignored.”

The UK government commissioned the UK Cyber Security Council in 2018 to promote and steward standards across the industry, and the overarching aim of helping close the UK’s cyber skills gap.

In June, the Council announced its first two initiatives as part of its remit to boost professional standards in the cyber industry. These were to determine the terms of two committees: a Professional Standards & Ethics Committee and a Qualifications & Careers Committee. These committees are tasked with helping ensure a common set of standards are adopted throughout education and training interventions related to cybersecurity. The Council also revealed it would be working on an initial mapping of CyBOK’s Qualifications Framework onto a public-facing Career Pathways Framework.

For more information on how to apply for membership to the Council, visit: https://www.ukcybersecuritycouncil.org.uk/membership/