USCYBERCOM

Recruiting and Retaining High-end Cyber Operators

By COL Charles McGrue

July 1, 2026 | Gray Space, 2026 E-Edition

Read Time: < 7 mins

Airman 1st Class Gerald Mack, cyber operator with 175th Cyber Operations, Maryland Air National Guard, monitors cyberattacks during Exercise Southern Strike at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, April 21, 2023. Southern Strike 2023 is a large-scale, joint multinational combat exercise hosted by the Mississippi National Guard that provides tactical-level training for the full spectrum of conflict. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Renee Seruntine)

The Department of War (DoW) is in a constant battle to recruit, train, retain, and leverage talent to support the national objectives as laid out by the various strategic documents published at the national level, such as the National Defense Strategy and the National Security Strategy. This challenge is an ongoing effort that is readily brought up each year, with an interest in understanding what the military is doing to meet its recruiting numbers. This challenge becomes even more difficult when the services are looking at building up skills in high demand professions like cybersecurity. Bringing in the right talent who can learn what needs to be done and then ensuring those who are taught can quickly escalate their level of professionalism means possibly losing an asset once their time is up. To avoid losing capable cybersecurity talent, the Department of War can make a few changes that are in line with current efforts to retain highly skilled individuals in the force. They can align all cyber operators under one command, like special forces, and have them broken out to support different combatant commands. They can ensure the mission of the cyber operators aligns with the national defense strategy and national security strategy. They can look at ways to compensate high performers in a manner that is like jump pay or pay for medical doctors to enhance recruiting and retention. Taking advantage of one or all of these options can help improve the retention of cyber operators in defense of the country.

The DoW can align all cyber operators under one command. In the United States Military, there are various organizations that make up the military, which are a combination of service-component commands, geographical-combatant commands, and functional commands. The service-component and the functional-combatant commands provide forces to the geographical-combatant commands by direction of the Secretary of Defense (CJCSI, 2024). The service components are also responsible for training and equipping their respective services, while the functional-combatant commands exercise their functions to have a higher level of capabilities. For example, prior to United States Space Force (USSF), all space assets were within one of the four main branches of service—those branches being the United States Army (USA), the United States Navy (USN), the United States Air Force (USAF), and the United States Marine Corps (USMC). Once USSF was created, various space assets or supporting assets were moved over to USSF from the other services. This allowed USSF to focus on building up the talent within the Space Force to support the Combatant Commands. Like Space Force, the DoW could create a United States Cyber Force (USCF), which would focus on training and equipping cyber operators to be highly proficient in their jobs. The road map for career progression is already available when you consider the other branches of service, and the size of the organization could be right sized to suit the nation’s needs.

DoW could build up the force like how special forces are built and developed. They would receive initial selection and training from their services, such as Ranger School, Special Forces Qualification Course, Sea Air and Land (SEAL) training, the Special Tactics Squadrons, or Marines Force Reconnaissance (MARFOR). They would also have post qualification training and continued training for cyber warriors. The USCF would support geographical commands. This allows the cybersecurity professionals to receive the training they need with the most up-to-date options they could train on after initial entry. This will not hinder cyber operators from working with other services in a non-cyber or non-hands-on role. They will still be able to take a break and support a non-cybersecurity primary focused unit to build up their breadth of experience in the military profession. However, it will align all training across the force to ensure that all cybersecurity professionals in DoW will receive equivalent training to develop the staff.

The DoW can ensure that the mission of the cyber operators aligns with the national defense strategy and the national security strategy. Positioning all cyber operators under one command will allow for alignment with the national policy objectives in support of cybersecurity efforts. That will help to diversify the knowledge and development of cyber operators. This ensures ongoing training to support the 2022 National Defense Strategy that speaks to integrating defense, building enduring advantages, and recognizing the growing threats to the United States Homeland (U.S. Department of War, 2022). These three in combination focus on deterring threats using cybersecurity operations (U.S. Department of War, 2022). This is elaborated on and further clarified in the 2023 Department of War (DoW) Cyber Strategy that is directly focused on securing U.S. interests in cyberspace (U.S. Department of War, 2023). These include defending the nation, campaigning in cyberspace, preparing for conflict, building enduring advantages, and strategic integration (U.S. Department of War, 2023). Therefore, the DoW will be able to leverage the service element to train the cyber operators to become proficient in dealing with conflict that could arise at a moment’s notice. Centralizing the training would allow all cyber operators to learn from each other and increase proficiency. This increase in proficiency will allow the cyber operators to build an enduring advantage needed to defend against nation-state and rogue actors. The DoW would then be able to leverage professional development to support strategic integration within the combatant commands to support strategic-level operations. By aligning cyber operations across the NDS and DoW Cyber Strategy, the cyber operators will have a stronger purpose that aligns with the mission of defending the homeland.

To ensure that cybersecurity operators are retained, the U.S. military can look at ways to compensate high performers like how jump pay or pay for medical doctors is used to recruit and retain personnel. This would be tantamount to providing a bonus spread out over time that is based on performance and the ability to develop their skills. Currently, those who are on jump status will receive extra pay in the form of jump pay (Beynon, 2025). These incentives could be used for those who are in certain key billets and performing as cyber operators. They could also look at compensating those cyber operators who have shown sound talent in the field and compensate them like how doctors are compensated. Doctors in the military receive various compensations that help to reduce or pay off their student-loan debts and allow them to receive additional compensation on top of their monthly pay (Provost, 2024). Those cyber operators who show an aptitude to perform could also get extra pay on top of their monthly pay and get their student loans paid off in a different program than the current GI Bill that the average military person gets. This will incentivize the cyber operators to perform and reduce the likelihood that they will leave due to pay concerns.

Although the Department of War has challenges of recruiting and retaining highly skilled cybersecurity operators, it is possible to accomplish this task. They can align all cybersecurity operations under one command that would be focused on equipping and training the force. This will ensure a level of unity within the command, like special forces. They can ensure that the cybersecurity operators are focused under the national-security objectives and therefore have a stronger purpose. They can provide pay incentives—like those on jump pay status or in the military medical community—which will address some pay discrepancies in comparison to the civilian markets. Indoctrinating these three options should help the DoW to achieve and maintain a highly skilled workforce of cybersecurity professionals.

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