* Latest results of Foote Partners Hot Technical Skills and Certifications Pay Index
As the number of organizations that have deployed VoIP grows, so too has the pay for network execs with IP telephony skills.
According to Foote Partners’ Hot Technical Skills and Certifications Pay Index for the first three months of the year, VoIP was the third highest-paying non-certified skill, behind project-level security and RAD/extreme programming. The study is the result of interviews with 48,000 IT workers in North America and Europe.
VoIP is followed by storage/storage-area network and Gigabit Ethernet, as non-certified skills that command high pay.
The study, which was released last month, found that overall, pay for all non-certified and certified skills grew 2.8% and 1.6%, respectively, between January and March of this year.
The skills pay reported in Foote Partner’s quarterly studies is typically paid in the form of cash bonuses, or added to base salary in recognition of a vendor or technical skill that’s critical to the job, says the research company.
The skills bonus pay for skills that make up the networking and internetworking category was 7% of base salary in the first quarter of 2005, a slight increase from 6.6% a year ago. The categories that command the highest bonus are database 7.2% of base salary) and enterprise applications and suites (7.1%). These figures are also just slightly above the overall median average bonus pay of 6.9% for the 89 non-certified skills surveyed.
And if you need further proof that networking certifications can help boost your pay, the study found that the premium pay for certified networking skills is 9.2% of base salary, an increase of 6.1% a year ago. This compares favorably to the 4% overall median average pay for the 83 certified skills surveyed.
The premium pay for certified sysadmins and engineers, and network operating systems specialists is 8.2% of base salary.
The highest paying network-specific certifications are Cisco Certified Design Professional, Cisco Certified Enterprise Administrator and Cisco Certified Security Professional.
** If you manage IT for a small and midsize firm and want to learn more about the tech issues that surround SMBs, you should consider attending Network World’s free IT Strategies for Small and Midsize Business Technology Tour. The event kicks off in Chicago on July 12 and wraps up in Houston, Texas on July 21. For more information, please go to: http://www.networkworld.com/events/smb05/index.html
