Project Management-Certified Pros Earn 6 Figures

There are a lot of reasons to check out the 2008 IT Skills and Salary Report from TechRepublic and Global Knowledge, which surveyed IT professionals on topics from job satisfaction to training. But the really exciting data is all about the money, and which certifications are associated with the biggest salaries.

Not for the first time, the project management certifications–both PMP (Project Management Professional) and PMI (Certified Associate in Project Management)–bring it home at $101,695 and $101,103, providing the only two six-figure salaries on the list. Both were found to be immune from depreciating value in Foote Partners’ Salary + Skills Pay Survey report last October.

However, not all pay for project management certifications broke the bank. CompTIA’s Project+ was 21st on the list, averaging a $70,000 salary.

Other certifications that correlated with top IT salaries were the ITIL v2 Foundations at $95,415, CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) at $94,018 and Cisco’s CCIE Routing & Switching ($93,500) and CCVP ($88,824).

The MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer) at $84,522, was the only Microsoft certification in the list’s top ten.

Further down in the list were MCSE 2000 (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) at $71,980 which, according to some IT managers, seems to be “a dime a dozen.”