2023
Voice of the SOC
Discover insights and recommendations from our survey of 900 security professionals – and the takeaways for leadership.
A word from Eoin Hinchy
CEO and Co-Founder, Tines
Security teams are getting restless.
Before founding Tines, I spent 15 years in the SOC leading teams charged with protecting organizations from ever-evolving threats. Over that time, the challenge facing SOC analysts became harder, not easier: workloads are increasing, but teams aren’t growing alongside them. SOC analysts are burning out as a result of tedious and repetitive tasks. In the best-case scenario, staff will leave in search of new opportunities and leave their previous organizations scrambling to replace them. In the worst case, their burnout will lead to human error that could cost a company millions.
Last year, we examined these issues in detail in our first “Voice of the SOC Analyst” report. Our survey found that while SOC teams were passionate and engaged in what they do, they were plagued by endless manual tasks, inefficient processes, and overwhelming alert fatigue — all preventing them from focusing on high-impact work. The same holds true in 2023.
For the second edition of the “Voice of the SOC,” Tines surveyed 900 security professionals. We expanded the scope beyond the United States to include Europe and sought perspectives from security leaders up to and including the C-suite, rather than just analysts.
Like many, security teams have felt the added pressure of economic instability over the past 12 months. They were asked to do more with less, as business leaders scrutinized every line on the balance sheet.
This year’s data reveals that overall job satisfaction in the SOC remains high — security practitioners love the work they do. However, burnout is taking its toll. Leaders continue to feel their teams are understaffed and don’t have access to the tools that could automate the most mundane aspects of their work. The bottom line: more than half of respondents, across job levels, say they’re likely to switch jobs in the coming year.
This should be an alarm bell to business leaders. With both cyberattacks and skill shortages increasing, staff retention in the SOC is mission critical. The following report digs into the factors that undermine morale and offers practical solutions to help alleviate burnout and empower staff to do their best work.
We hope you find it useful in your SOC in 2023 and as you plan for 2024.
Key findings
Here are a few of the insights we learned from the security professionals we surveyed:
63% of practitioners experience some level of burnout.
With more than 80% saying their workloads have increased in the past year, the problem is only getting worse.
55% say they’re likely to switch jobs in the next year.
Organizations could increase retention by increasing salaries, supplying modern tools with advanced capabilities, hiring more staff, and investing in solutions that automate tedious, manual tasks.
Spending time on manual work is the most frustrating aspect of the job.
If respondents had to spend less time on manual tasks, they would most likely use that time to research and evaluate new tools, develop more advanced detection rules, and integrate more systems and logs.
There’s hope in automation.
Nine out of ten security teams are automating at least some of their work, and 93% of respondents believe that more automation would improve their work-life balance. Respondents expect automation to help their teams increase productivity, save time, and optimize performance and reliability.
Security practitioners are learning to code.
Security teams now consider learning to code — along with computer forensics and malware analysis techniques — most important to succeed, likely because of coding’s key role in automation. No-code security solutions could provide similar benefits as organizations automate repetitive tasks.
Methodology and participant demographics
Tines surveyed 900 full-time security professionals from companies with 200 or more employees. Nearly half (46%) work at companies with more than 1,000 employees. There were 500 U.S. respondents, along with 100 each from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Benelux, and the Nordic region. The survey was conducted online by Sago, a research panel company, in May and June 2023.
Demographic breakdown
Gender
Age
Country
Employment status
Company size
What best describes the industry you work in?
How many people are on your security team in total?
Which of the following best describes your security team in terms of work location?
How many different tools do you use for your security-related work?
Which of the following best describes your title?
To summarize, our respondents are typically security professionals, the majority of whom work for companies in the technology industry with more than 500 employees. Let’s explore their day-to-day experiences in the SOC.
Chapter 1
Job satisfaction and workloads
Security teams enjoy the work they do and feel appreciated by the organization. But all is not well in the SOC — burnout and understaffing threaten stability and security. To better understand how leaders can fix the challenges at play, we first must take stock of how security teams are feeling today.