FOOTE PARTNERS ANALYST VIEWPOINT

Extra pay awarded by employers to talented tech professionals for 704 non-certified IT skills---also known as cash pay premiums---increased 0.2 percent in the final quarter after three consecutive quarterly declines in 2023. Despite lackluster performance for the year in which average pay premiums declined one-half percent overall, the current average cash pay premium bonus for a single skill in the 4^th quarter was the equivalent of 9.5 percent of base salary, well above the 6.5 average pay premium for IT certifications.

Average market value for 629  IT certifications increased 0.7 percent in the final quarter of 2023 for only the second time in the calendar year despite poor performance for the entire calendar year(similar to non-certified IT skills) in which the average pay premium for certifications declined nearly one percent overall.

This according to the latest quarterly update of Foote Partners’ IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index^TM (ITSCPI) based on compensation data provided by 4,314 private and public-sector employers in 83 U.S. and Canadian cities who partner with our firm to report pay for their 422,770 technology professionals in the U.S. and Canada.

Market values of these non-certified skills pay well above average and were still growing in cash pay premiums in the first half of 2018.

New highly-validated data from 3,305 employers reveals that the average cash market value for hundreds of tech certifications is at its lowest point since 2015.