UK’s Department for Education quadruples cyber security training in one year

The UK’s Department for Education (DfE) has more than quadrupled its number of staff receiving cyber security training in a year, a freedom of information request has found.

The DfE has notably increased its funding towards cyber security training, from around £2,000 per annum in 2019/20, to just under £32,000 the next year. The boost in spending has increased the number of courses for DfE staff to choose from – from four to 44. From April 2020 to April 2021, more than 30,000 department staff took on cyber security training, an increase from 7,000 in the previous year.

Obtained by the think tank Parliament Street, the figures were released on 23 September. Most of the DfE course attendees received a series of entry-level cyber security e-learning sessions, which included a simulated cyber-attack course with remedial phishing training.

The majority of the courses were provided by the Civil Service Learning programme or were delivered through DfE’s internal tools and resources. The funding went towards 17 specialised training courses and exams, such as information systems, Microsoft 365, and security risk management.

The staff at DfE can obtain qualifications including the SABSA Charted Security Architect Foundation Certificate, PRINCE 2 Agile Foundation & Practitioner Certificates in Agile Project Management, and Cisco Certified Network Associate.