Cybersecurity Competencies for the future - insights from the project Cybersecurity Kompetenz Austria (CSKA)

The increasing deployment of AI-powered and autonomous systems across critical sectors demands robust cybersecurity strategies, including a highly skilled and adaptable workforce. The CyberSec Kompetenz Austria (CSKA) initiative addresses Austria’s cybersecurity talent shortage through a comprehensive analysis of current and future workforce needs, education offerings, and regulatory trends. This paper presents an overview of CSKA’s and first results: a comparative analysis of international cybersecurity skills frameworks, including ECSF (EU), NICE (USA), ACSF (Australia), and SCCF (Singapore). The analysis focuses on structural differences, granularity, and sectoral applicability, using ECSF as the baseline for developing localized competence profiles. We further explore how these profiles must evolve to address emerging challenges in AI governance, adversarial machine learning, and cyber-physical system resilience. Our findings offer insights not only for Austria but also for other nations seeking to align human capital strategies with the safe and sustainable development of autonomous technologies. The paper concludes with recommendations for profile refinement, diversity-focused workforce expansion, and international collaboration to build secure, AI-ready ecosystems.