Compensation data from Foote Partners’ IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index (ITSCPI) once again shows that adding the right skills to your toolbox can not only increase your marketability but also your earning potential.
For the past two decades, many employers have offered a premium or bonus above base salary to attract and retain technology workers with critical skills, especially when demand exceeds the available supply.
However, certain skills not only garnered above-average cash premiums through the first quarter of this year but gains in market value over the last six months, offering the potential for long-term ROI.
To help you upskill in a way that maximizes your earning potential, David Foote, Foote Partners’ chief analyst and research partner, identified the certified and non-certified skills that are most likely to give you an edge in the job market today and for the foreseeable future.
Highly Profitable Non-Certified Skills
There’s a theme here. Many of the highest-paying skills that don’t require a certification are not actually singular skills. Rather, they are disciplines or methodologies that require a compilation of hard and soft skills, processes, tools and techniques. In fact, non-certified skills related to management, methodologies and processes have gained the most value as a group over the last 21 years based on Foote Partners’ data.
MLOps
Average Pay Premium: 21 percent of base salary
Market Value Increase: 10.5 percent (in the six months through April 1, 2024)
The need to stay ahead of competitors by shortening the development cycle from concept to final build for machine learning (ML) applications and models is driving the demand and premium pay for proficiency with MLOps, Foote explained.
Much like its cousin DevOps, MLOps focuses on streamlining processes and improving collaboration and communication between data scientists, ML and software engineers and operations teams, all of whom speak different “languages.” Depending on your background and foundational skills, a training course might be the best way to get started with MLOps.
Convolutional Neural Networks
Risk Analytics/Assessments
Average Pay Premium: 21 percent of base salary
Market Value Increase: 5 percent (in the six months through April 1, 2024)
Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and ML have made Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) skills indispensable for processing and interpreting visual data. CNNs are also applied across a variety of industries including healthcare, retail, self-driving cars and more, which is increasing the demand for skilled professionals.
Risk analytics is another multidimensional discipline that combines data analysis, statistical modeling and ML techniques to evaluate and manage potential risks within an organization.
Today, any recommendations made by business or data analysts must identify and assess the likelihood of risk that the business may encounter when implementing the solution, making risk analytics an emerging fundamental skill, Foote said. Examples include risks to data privacy or regulatory compliance, or negative impacts on the company’s reputation, stock price or revenue stream if things don’t go as planned.
Data Governance
Average Pay Premium: 19 percent of base salary
Market Value Increase: 18.6 percent (in the six months through April 1, 2024)
Data Strategy
Average Pay Premium: 19 percent of base salary
Market Value Increase: 5.6 percent (in the six months through April 1, 2024)
While data governance is increasing in value amid rising regulations and a growing reliance on data-driven decision-making, you can’t go wrong learning any data-related skills including data strategy, data science and data integration. As a group, the non-certified data and data management skills tracked by Foote Partners has notched the second biggest gain in premium pay over the last 21 years.
AWS DevOps
Average Pay Premium: 19 percent of base salary
Market Value Increase: 5.6 percent (in the six months through April 1, 2024)
The continuing domination of AWS in the global cloud infrastructure market is boosting the demand for professionals who know how to streamline the software development and deployment process by implementing DevOps philosophies and best practices in an AWS cloud environment.
Foote also pointed out that mastering any of the following key individual skill components of AWS DevOps may garner cash premiums from employers as well:
- AWS CloudFormation
- AWS EC2
- AWS CodeBuild, CodeDeploy and CodePipeline
- AWS Lambda
- Amazon CloudWatch
Deep Learning
Large Language Model/LLM tuning
Natural Language Processing
Average Pay Premium: 19 percent of base salary
Market Value Increase: 5.6 percent (in the six months through April 1, 2024)
It’s not surprising to see three subsets of AI on Foote Partners’ list of non-certified skills that are paying premiums and growing in importance and market value.
First, the growing use of deep learning technology in everyday products and services, as well as emerging technologies (such as self-driving cars), is driving up demand and premium pay. Meanwhile, the demand for skills in working with and tuning Large Language Models (LLM) is also on the rise, with the applications for LLMs spread across numerous industries and use cases.
Similar to LLMs, Natural Language Processing (NLP) skills are at the forefront of bridging the gap between human communication and digital data, enabling machines to understand and interact with human language in a meaningful way. Speaking of bright futures, the global NLP market is expected to grow 27.55 percent resulting in a market volume of $156 billion by 2030.
Highly Profitable Certified Skills
Roughly three-quarters of the certifications that helped drive up average cash pay premiums at the beginning of 2024—and also grew in market value over the last six months—are related to information/ cybersecurity or data privacy.
Cisco Certified Network Professional - Security
Average Pay Premium: 11 percent of base salary
Market Value Increase: 37.5 percent (in the six months through April 1, 2024)
Cisco remains the largest provider of networking equipment in the world. So why are cash premiums for this certification rising now? The frequency and sophistication of cyber threats have made network security a top priority. And since the CCNP is recognized as a benchmark for skills in Cisco’s security technologies, pay and market demand have risen.
Certified Cloud Security Professional (ISC2-CCSP)
Average Pay Premium: 11 percent of base salary
Market Value Increase: 22.2 percent (in the six months through April 1, 2024)
“Cloud security is huge,” Foote said. Certifications related to information security and cloud security continue to dominate and offer a strong ROI, as certification holders command premium pay and are more likely to be considered for promotions and management opportunities he added.
Certified Forensic Computer Examiner (CFCE)
Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)
Infosys Security Engineering Professional (ISSEP/CISSP)
Infosys Security Management Professional (ISSMP/CISSP)
Average Pay Premium: 11 percent of base salary
Market Value Increase: 10 percent (in the six months through April 1, 2024)
Want to seize the opportunity to move up? Earning any of these certs, especially the CISM, can put you in the running to manage or lead a cybersecurity team, Foote said.
Looking ahead, 78 percent of employers anticipate a surge in demand for technical cybersecurity contributors in the coming year. Concurrently, 48 percent foresee an increase in the demand for cybersecurity managers, according to ISACA’s 2023 State of Cybersecurity report.
Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer (CDPSE-ISACA)
Certified Information Privacy Technologist- all countries
Average Pay Premium: 10 percent of base salary
Market Value Increase: 11.1 percent (in the six months through April 1, 2024)
Finally, roughly 137 countries now have national data privacy and protection laws, and more are working their way through various legislative bodies. The implications are huge for businesses and technology professionals charged with remaining compliant with evolving global privacy regulations.
Today every company needs staff that are familiar with international data privacy laws… and they are willing to pay a premium to get them, Foote added.
