As of 13 August 2026, AI can plan your route into cyber security.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open a document and write down your current job, previous experience, qualifications, technical skills, location, available study time, budget and the type of cyber security work that interests you.
   2. Open several current UK cyber security job adverts at the level you could realistically target and copy their role titles, essential requirements, desirable requirements and evidence of experience into the document.
   3. Paste your information and the job-advert notes into a chatbot with the copyable prompt, replacing each bracketed slot with your own details.
   4. Ask the chatbot to separate its recommendations into confirmed facts from your information, claims that need checking, and its own judgement about route order.
   5. Compare each proposed skill, qualification and project against the job adverts and the current provider or official course page before adding it to your plan.
   6. Choose one route using the plan's decision rule, then turn its first stage into weekly study, practical project and job-search actions that fit your available time.
   7. After completing the first stage, update the chatbot with your work and project evidence and ask it to revise the gap analysis before you apply for roles.

   Prompt

   Plan a realistic route for me into cyber security in the UK. Use the information below and do not invent experience, qualifications, job requirements, salaries, course details or hiring trends.
   
   My current situation:
   - Location: [UK location or remote preference]
   - Current job and previous experience: [details]
   - Qualifications: [details]
   - Technical experience: [details, including operating systems, networking, cloud, coding or IT support]
   - Cyber security experience: [details or none]
   - Target roles: [for example SOC analyst, security engineer, penetration tester, GRC analyst or undecided]
   - Hours available for learning each week: [hours]
   - Budget: [amount or free only]
   - Target date for applying to my first relevant role: [date or undecided]
   - Constraints: [work, caring, health, location or other constraints]
   
   Produce:
   1. Two or three plausible entry routes, including the type of role each route leads towards.
   2. A gap analysis separating skills I already have from skills I need to build.
   3. A staged plan with actions, evidence of progress and a sensible order, without promising a job outcome.
   4. A shortlist of qualifications, projects, labs or other evidence only where you can explain why they fit the target role. Mark anything that needs checking against a current provider or job advert.
   5. A job-advert research plan using current UK vacancies, including the terms and requirements I should compare.
   6. A decision rule for choosing between the routes.
   
   Keep the plan practical and specific to my constraints. Distinguish essential requirements from common preferences. Do not recommend a qualification merely because it is well known, and do not treat certification as a substitute for hands-on evidence. Cite the source or say that I need to verify it whenever a claim depends on current information.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.