Historically, IT skills certifications were a ticket to higher salaries for IT professionals. Based on data from Foote Partners IT Skills and Certification Pay Index for the third quarter 2011, this trend appears to be changing. In her article in Channel Insider, Ericka Chickowski notes that Foote Partners found that 13% of non-certified skills saw pay increases whereas only 5% of certified skill sets saw increases.
Increasingly, IT professionals are embedded with the business professionals they need diverse skills. These individuals succeed by understanding the business environment and being able to apply IT skills to support it. David Foote notes that these “hybrid IT business professionals” are expected to have strong IT skills but also business-related skills and that IT certifications per se, are less valuable than experience and on-the-job performance.
