Empirical Analysis of the Cybersecurity Skills Gap and Its Implications for Nigeria’s Digital Economy Workforce Pipeline

Nigeria's digital economy ambitions are constrained by a significant cybersecurity skills gap that threatens both private sector security postures and national critical infrastructure protection, and empirically quantifying this gap and its determinants provides an essential evidence base for workforce development policy. This study empirically analyses the cybersecurity skills gap in Nigeria's digital economy workforce pipeline, examining supply (graduate output) and demand (industry requirement) dimensions. A mixed-methods study was applied, combining analysis of JAMB admission statistics, NUC accreditation data for cybersecurity and information security courses from 2019 to 2023, and graduate employment tracking surveys of 400 ICT graduates with structured employer demand surveys of 80 technology companies and financial institutions across Lagos, Abuja, Kano, and Port Harcourt. Skills gap metrics were computed across ten cybersecurity competence domains using the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework. Available cybersecurity workforce literature from Nigeria identifies the absence of dedicated cybersecurity undergraduate programmes in most NUC-accredited universities and inadequate industry-academia collaboration as the primary supply-side constraints. The Human Capital Theory and NICE Workforce Framework provide the analytical basis. Findings quantify an estimated 47,000-person annual cybersecurity skills deficit, concentrated in penetration testing, incident response, and security architecture competences. The study fills an empirical workforce quantification gap. Recommendations address NUC cybersecurity programme accreditation prioritisation, industry-university cybersecurity training partnerships, and government-funded cybersecurity bootcamp initiatives. Keywords: cybersecurity skills gap, digital economy, workforce pipeline, Nigeria, NICE framework.