Last year, over 209,000 cybersecurity jobs went unfilled, yet job postings for information security professionals have increased 74% over the past five years, according to Peninsula Press. This might be the most in-demand job in IT.

It's not hard to guess why: With the rise in cyberattacks and more sophisticated hackers, we need more people who can stop and prevent them.

Over the past five years, the demand for cybersecurity professionals grew 3.5 times faster than other IT jobs (12 times faster than all jobs). And information security professionals earn on average about $12,000 more than the average of all computer jobs.

It's a demanding career, though, and one that requires constantly learning to stay ahead of changes in the industry. Peninsula Press points to concern that there aren't enough people to meet the need for information security across all kinds of organizations and suggest that two of the reasons we have this problem is not enough young people interested in the field and not enough women.

If you're interested in a career change, though, or to add on a different, highly valuable skill, perhaps you should consider cybersecurity. Here's a map of the top 20 cities by growth of cybersecurity job postings:

[via WonderHowTo]

This story, "Jobs and salaries in cybersecurity are booming" was originally published by ITworld .