Whether you are looking to jumpstart your career, improve your IT skills or grow in your current organization, certifications provide an easy path to get trained and validate your skills. Certifications can verify your IT skills and experience, demonstrating to employers that you have the knowledge and expertise to complete the job. You can get certified in skills you currently have or skills you want to utilize in your profession – whatever your objective, certifications are an excellent way to ramp up your CV and separate yourself from other job applicants.

Going into 2022, not a lot has changed from 2021 when it comes to in demand skills. The skills associated with cybersecurity and cloud certifications continue to be in high demand.  

The best certifications for IT professionals are those that help you stand out from the crowd. They're not just about passing a test, but about demonstrating your skills and knowledge in an industry-specific way.we have compiled a list of the top IT certifications based on experience from our marketplace and analytics. We also looked at 2022 Salary Guide From Robert Half. These certifications are the ones that will give you the edge when it comes to getting hired or promoted.

We thought it would be beneficial to group the certifications based on the technology and/or type of role. So, below is the list of some important in-demand IT roles and the popular certifications associated with them.

●  (AWS) Certified Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C02) –  This certification allows candidates to prove their knowledge and experience at par with one or multiple years of practical experience in designing highly available, fault-tolerant, scalable, cost efficiency, highly distributed AWS systems. As per globalknowledge.com, the average salary of an AWS Certified Solutions Architect in USA/Canada is around $153,142 per year.

● Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-104,AZ-305)  – This certification requires candidates to be a subject matter expert in designing cloud and hybrid solutions that run on Microsoft Azure, including compute, network, storage, monitoring, and security. As per acloudguru.com, the average salary of a Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert in USA is around $152,142 per year.

● Google Certified Professional Cloud Architect – Similar to AWS and Azure, a GCP Professional Architect needs to have a thorough understanding of cloud architecture and Google Cloud. Candidates should have a good command on designing, developing, and managing robust, secure, scalable, highly available, and dynamic solutions to drive business objectives. As per ziprecruiter.com, the average salary of an Google Certified Professional Cloud Architect in USA is around $135,980 per year.

● Google Certified Professional Data Engineer – As per GCP,  a Data Engineer should be able to design, build, operationalize, secure, and monitor data processing systems with a particular emphasis on security and compliance; scalability and efficiency; reliability and fidelity; and flexibility and portability. A Data Engineer should also be able to leverage, deploy, and continuously train pre-existing machine learning models. As per talent.com, the average salary for a Google Professional Data Engineer in the USA is around $147,000 per year.

● (AWS) Certified Data Analytics Specialty– This certification validates technical skills and experience in AWS data lakes and analytics services. It also requires a candidate to know how AWS data analytics services fit in the data life cycle of collection, storage, processing, and visualization. As per ziprecruiter.com, the average salary for an AWS Certified Data Analytics Specialty in the USA is around $123,807 per year.

● Azure Data Engineer Associate (DP-203) – A candidate for this certification needs to have subject matter expertise integrating, transforming, and consolidating data from various structured and unstructured data systems into structures that are suitable for building analytics solutions. As per linkedin.com, the average salary for an Azure Data Engineer Associate in the USA is more than $100,000 per year.

● (DASCA) Associate Big Data Engineer – The vendor-neutral DASCA Associate Big Data Engineer certification demonstrates knowledge of popular big data platforms, including Hadoop and Spark, and knowledge of proprietary and open source developer tools (including HBase, Hive, Pig, and HiveQL). As per indeed.com, the average salary for a DASCA Associate Big Data Engineer in the USA is around $116,964 per year.

● Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) – The certification was designed by ISC2 and aims at teaching cybersecurity experts the industry standards. Despite its popularity, it isn’t best for beginners since passing this exam requires extensive knowledge and cybersecurity experience. As per isc2.org, the average salary for a CISSP in the USA is around $135,510 per year.

● CompTIA Security+ (SY0-601) – This is an entry-level certification covering a wide range of cybersecurity topics, ranging from network security, access controls, system threats, and vulnerabilities to cryptography. It also focuses on the latest concepts of risk management and threat mitigation. As per ziprecruiter.com, the average salary for a CompTIA Security+ entry level job in the USA is around $59,009 per year. 

● Certified Ethical Hacker (312-50) – This certification from EC council helps cybersecurity professionals in mastering the concepts of penetration testing, evaluating organizational network vulnerabilities and other infrastructures. As per payscale.com, the average salary for a CEH in the USA is around $95,000 per year.

● Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC) – This certification from ISACA, aid individuals in understanding business risk and possess a technical understanding to implement the most useful information security procedures and controls. As per ziprecruiter.com, the average salary for a CRISC in the USA is around $132,266 per year.

● Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) – This certification offers a comprehensive growth field with limited experience and specialization as compared to other project management certifications. CAPM credential marks the attainment of project management skills at any career stage. As per ziprecruiter.com, the average

● Project Management Professional (PMP) – This certification is a criterion for evaluating the skills of management professionals in directing projects. It demonstrates the competency of the practitioner in terms of experience and education. This industry-recognized credential is a designation offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI), USA. As per pmi.org, the average salary for a PMP in the USA is around $112,000 per year.

Blog: How to Pass PMP in your first attempt.

● Certified Scrum Master (CSM) – It is an entry-level exam specifically designed for professionals who want to pursue their career as scrum practitioners. Candidates must have a general interest in project management along with a good knowledge of scrum values and the agile platform. As per payscale.com, the average salary for a CSM in the USA is around $93,106 per year.

● Professional Scrum Master (PSM) – This certification comes in three assessments which demonstrate a fundamental, advanced and a distinguished level of proficiency. They are PSM-I, PSM-II, and PSM-III respectively. With each approaching level, the depth of Scrum principles grows deeper and a candidate gains exceptional skills that can be practiced in the real-world situations. As per ziprecruiter.com, the average salary for a PSM in the USA is around $96,102 per year.

● Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) – This certification is earned by various IT services professionals to prove their competency in solving specific hardware/software problems. It is not only widely accepted, but a crucial step to walk on the career pathway of a network administrator or engineer. As per ziprecruiter.com, the average salary for a CCNA in the USA is around $84,376 per year.

● Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) – This certification is more advanced and technically sound as compared to CCNA. It is an absolute fit for anyone engaged in networking environment willing to invest the energy and resources required to attain expertise in security troubleshooting and solutions. As per talent.com, the average salary for a CCNP in the USA is around $100,700 per year.

● Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) – This certification aims at providing accreditation at the highest possible level for Cisco networking products. In order to get here, significant industrial experience coupled with other lower level Cisco certifications is needed to understand the most challenging network assignments. As per talent.com, the average salary for a CCIE in the USA is around $150,000 per year.

● Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) – Kubernetes, originally designed by Google, now maintained by  the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.Kubernetes is at the cutting-edge of application deployment. The Kubernetes Certification is a practical hands-on exam. Average salary of CKA as per Ziprecruiter is $144,315.

● Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400) – This certification requires the professionals to be well versed with the DevOps practices and development processes. It is an expert-level certification. With the popularity of Azure, DevOps Engineer job roles are supposed to be on a spike in 2022. As per talent.com, the average salary for a AZ-400 in the USA is around $98,000 per year.

● AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional – This certification requires an extensive experience working in AWS DevOps environment to build on deployment skills. A highly functional cloud environment allows for critical skills to sharpen and formulate the talent needed to work in an AWS environment. As per talent.com, the average salary for an AWS Certified DevOps Engineer in the USA is around $140,000 per year.

● Salesforce Administrator (ADM-201) – Being a salesforce administrator, the daily responsibilities are to look after reports and dashboards, managing data feeds, and coordinate the users, vendors, and applications, development teams. It is specially designed for the individuals aware of the Salesforce and can add more features to it. As per Glassdoor.com, average annual salary range of Salesforce Certified Administrator in the USA is around US – $87,000/year.

● Salesforce Platform App Builder – Salesforce Platform App Builder Certification is created for individuals to demonstrate their potential in building and customizing the standard applications or designing a totally custom application. A candidate for this certification should be familiar with the capabilities of the Lightning Platform. It should also be able to design applications to support business processes. Average median salary for range of Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder in the USA is around $97,000.