It`s no surprise that by far the most respondents have a Microsoft (38%) or a Microsoft Windows NT (25%) certification. But Microsoft- and Novell-certified professionals, who represent 12% of the sample, were the worst paid in comparison with other certified skills.
The best paid were the professionals with IBM mainframe or database certifications, where the salaries also reflect the long experience and high-level positions of people working in legacy systems.
It appears that our sample is strongly biased towards the PC environment. Janette Cumming, an IT recruitment specialist and a director of Paracon Holdings, comments that the mainframe market is still fairly represented and that the 7% reported in this survey does not do it justice.
However, Cumming warns of no new demand for legacy skills. "There is a huge demand for client-server and Web development skills, but not for legacy systems. Companies are maintaining the people they have got, for general maintenance and small projects, but there`s no huge new development on legacy systems."
The highest paid IBM skills are followed by those supporting enterprise resource planning systems - Oracle, SAP and JD Edwards, with Baan and Lotus Notes skills a notch down on the salary scale. Oracle and SAP skills both represent only 6% of the sample, while JD Edwards and Baan represent only 1%.
Unix and Network+ skills each represent 10% of the sample. But professionals certified for more mission-critical Unix systems, quite predictably, command much higher salaries than those with the relatively recently introduced Network+ certification - in fact, they reported the lowest salary of all certified respondents. This is in line with our job description finding, which showed that network administration is among the lowest paid jobs.
Restoring faith
Gary Chalmers, MD of training specialist Torque-IT, comments: "Surprisingly, Cisco certifications only account for 6%, but given Cisco`s dominance in Internet infrastructure, my prediction is that this figure will rise rapidly in the next year."
Cumming echoes the demand for Cisco skills: "Give me a dozen CNNAs [Cisco Certified Networking Associates] and I`ll take them. But MCSEs - those people are struggling."
This seems to be a South African syndrome. "This is the only country in the world that has a significant number of unemployed MCSEs," says Adrian Schofield, president of Information Industry South Africa. "And it`s a country where we read every day about the acute skills shortage.
"The only reason that certain certifications, notably MCSE and A+, have lost value in the marketplace is the criminal way in which certain training providers have exploited young unemployed people and their families," he says.
But the damage has been done. Cumming says recruiters and employers got their fingers burnt when get-rich-quick training institutions flooded the market with "certified" people. In turn, individuals who spent money on costly certification training were disillusioned when they didn`t end up with a job.
People sponsored by their company were the best off, notes Cumming. "They had the job, got the certification, and then they could get experience practicing the new skill at the old job."
But it`s tough for the aspiring entrants. Craig Levy, MD of Internet and network services provider Ensquared, says people with MCSE and CNE certifications will have to "re-focus their skills".
"It might have made sense to have people on board with these types of skills [MCSE and CNE] 18 months ago," says Levy. "The skills set is changing and IT workers need to skill themselves up for an e-commerce-driven world."
This is asking the disillusioned to find faith again - that this time round the hefty investment in their skills will provide some returns. Schofield believes the onus is on the IT training community to re-build this trust. "The training industry must work together to root out the 'thieves and vagabonds` and restore the credibility of a sector that has a vital contribution to make to the country`s future."
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