IT certs are back! Learn these hot skills and earn more

After a long period of decline, the value of IT certifications has reversed course and is now climbing — particularly in areas like the cloud, IT security, and database management. At the same time, new economic data shows that unemployment across the technology industry has dropped to a seven-year low.

The double-barreled burst of good news on the jobs front is not only encouraging — late last year, there were hints of a slowdown — but it should give IT hands some solid guidance on how to boost their earnings in the near future.

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Premium pay for specialized, but noncertified, IT skills has been climbing for years, but the added value of IT certifications had declined steadily since 2006, according to data collected by Foote Partners, which closely tracks IT pay and employment. That’s changed: Certifications started regaining value last year, and they have continued on the upswing for a full year. Now, the premium pay for certified skills is an average 7.05 percent, according to Foote.

A separate analysis of employment data by Dice.com, a large job board, showed record demand for professionals with skills in several areas, including big data and Hadoop.

Why certifications are gaining value is unclear, says David Foote, a principal analyst at Foote Partners. In part, he says, it’s a result of marketing campaigns by the companies that issue those certifications. Also contributing to the rise in value are new certifications in areas, particularly the cloud, where there are shortages of people with the right skills.

The best-paying certifications

Some of the best-paying certifications listed by Foote include:

• PMI Program Management Professional
• Infosys Security Engineering Professional
• GIAC Security Leadership
• EMC Cloud Architect
• Cisco Certified Architect

Maybe the drumbeat of news about data breaches and espionage by the NSA has prodded businesses to pay more, but many security-related certifications are rapidly gaining value. Here are a few that made their first appearance on Foote’s list of the highest-paying certs in the first quarter:

• Certified in Risk and Information Systems
• EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker
• GIAC Exploit Researcher and Advance Penetration Tester
• Systems Security Certified Practitioner

Although the value of certifications is increasing, don’t forget that some technology areas command premium pay even if you don’t have certifications — as long as you possess the desired skills. According to Foote, some of the most valuable noncertified permium skills include:

• Data architecture
• Big data analytics
• Cyber security
• Apache Hadoop
• IT governance
• Oracle SCM

Skills that appeared on Foote’s list for the first time include master data management, mobile operating systems, MondoDB, and NoSQL. In fact, these hot areas tend to have an even higher premium than areas with certifications: 8.84 percent versus 7.05 percent. The reason is likely that these hot, noncertified areas are newer fields, where the talent pool is smaller and for which formal certifications don’t yet exist.

Tech unemployment drops, but tech workers are staying put Employment in technology fell to its lowest point since 2007 in the first three months of 2014, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment in the tech sector through March was just 2.7 percent, compared to overall unemployment of 6.7 percent. In mid-2013, tech employment was 3.9 percent, sparking fears that the recovery in the sector was stalling, but by the end of 2013, it had dropped to 3.5 percent. (We still haven’t approached the record low unemployment reached in the second quarter of 2007: 1.8 percent.)

As of the beginning of April, 80,671 tech jobs were posted on Dice, including 48,472 full-time positions, with record demand for professionals in big data, mobile, cloud computing, and security. Dice registered a record number of postings in several areas, including NoSQL (up 54 percent from the same period last year), big data (up 46 percent), Hadoop (up 43 percent), and Python (up 16 percent).

Consulting is hot as well. An analysis of the BLS data by Dice found that tech consulting added 17,200 new positions in the first quarter. “More jobs, more wages, more hours — it’s the hat trick for technology consultants,” says Dice President Shavran Goli.

Tech consultants scored in the 2014 Dice Salary Survey as well. Their pay raise — 4 percent year over year — was bigger than that of the tech population as a whole, which saw gains of 3 percent.

Interestingly, fewer tech workers are quitting their jobs. In January and February, 451,00 employees in professional and business services left voluntarily, according to the BLS, compared to more than 500,000 the year before. What does that mean? It’s not clear. It could be that employees are still not confident that the good times will last, so they’re staying put. Another possibility, Goli speculates, is that employers are fighting harder to retain talent. A Dice hiring survey earlier this year found that more employees who say they are going to quit are getting counteroffers.

What’s the takeaway from all this data? Times are obviously good. IT hands who hit the books and add some certs or premium skills to their résumé will do even better.

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This article, “IT certs are back! Learn these hot skills and earn more,” was originally published by InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bill Snyder’s Tech’s Bottom Line blog and follow the latest technology business developments at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.