There's a New Salary Survey 75 List
Every year the release of the January issue of Certification Magazine heralds the arrival of data from that august publication's annual Salary Survey. The most familiar bullet points from the survey are published in the magazine, and the very most familiar – and popular – of those most familiar bullet points is a list of the most valuable certifications in the survey: The Salary Survey 75. We're talking about most valuable in the sense of returning the greatest monetary value, as measured by average annual salary. It's an inexact science, to be sure, a fact readily acknowledged by the list compilers. The Salary Survey 75 is also the source a cool annual series that runs weekly at CertMag.com. The Deep Focus series, which has already kicked off with the 2019 Salary Survey 75's number one certification, profiles individual credentials from the list and offers intriguing drill-down details about (usually) somewhere between 45 and 50 certs by the end of each year.
Cities Where IT Pros Should Live and Work, Part 1
What a time for IT professionals be alive! First we get a list of 75 IT certifications that offer potent salaries, and now tech industry association CompTIA is letting us know where we should look for a job and take out a mortgage. A new post to the IT Career News blog, where CompTIA dispenses weekly career advice, merges the findings of two "top cities" lists to pinpoint the best places for tech professionals to consider putting down roots. First you have a list from U.S. News and World Report that weighs factors such as quality of life, affordability, and overall availability of jobs to rank the 125 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas. Blogger Eileen Tauchman compares those rankings with CompTIA's own list of top "tech towns" to identify the very most desirable locales for workers with strong IT skills. The top city is deep in the heart of Texas, the state capital of Austin, followed by the Rocky Mountainous duo of Colorado Springs, Colo. (No 2) and Denver, Colo. (No. 3).
Cities Where IT Pros Should Live and Work, Part 2
They say that you should always get a second opinion, right? Lists of "best cities" appear throughout the year, but there are definitely more of them floating around in January than, say, July. The next list to fall beneath our radar is from WalletHub and compiles the best places to live for STEM professionals. The T in STEM, of course, stands for "technology," and IT aligns almost equally well with the S (for science), the E (engineering), and the M (math), so this is also a solid list that deserves consideration from IT pros with the freedom to relocate. The WalletHub Top 10 (out of 100) are as follows: 1) Seattle, Wash.; 2) Boston, Mass.; 3) Pittsburgh, Penn.; 4) Austin, Texas; 5) San Francisco, Calif.; 6) Madison, Wis.; 7) Atlanta, Ga.; 8. Salt Lake City, Utah; 9) Minneapolis, Minn.; and 10) Cincinnati, Ohio. You can go scan the list yourself if you want to see how the bottom end shakes out.
The Hottest IT Profession of 2019
Since we've already told you where to look to learn which certifications are most (potentially) lucrative, as well as where you can go to find work and buy a home with all of that lucre, you may be asking yourself, "What's left?" Plenty, of course, but what we have for you today is a strong opinion regarding the hottest job title of 2019. According to cybersecurity professional association (ISC)2, the hottest job is personal sushi consultant – fine, ok, it's actually cybersecurity engineer. (Surely you weren't expecting "heart surgeon" or "tax attorney" from a cybersecurity advocacy organization?) (ISC)2 says that skilled cybersecurity engineers grab an average annual salary of $140,000, and that demand for the position is skyrocketing. (ISC)2 is the sponsoring entity for some of the most highly regarded cybersecurity credentials in the entire IT industry, so the article also makes a plug for three applicable certifications that can help cybersecurity engineers maximize their attractiveness to potential employers.
That's all for this edition of Certification Watch. Please keep your certification news and tips coming to the GoCertify News Editor.
