IT Certification Market Overview 2018

The information technology certification market entered 2018 in a period of remarkable dynamism, shaped by converging forces including accelerating cloud adoption, expanding cybersecurity threat landscapes, the maturation of big data and analytics platforms, and the emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning as mainstream enterprise technology concerns. Organizations worldwide were investing at unprecedented levels in digital transformation initiatives that required specialized technical talent across a wider range of disciplines than at any previous point in the industry’s history, and the certification market responded by expanding both the breadth of credentials available and the sophistication of assessment methodologies used to evaluate candidate competency. The result was a credential landscape of considerable complexity that offered professionals extraordinary opportunities for career differentiation while simultaneously demanding more careful navigation than the simpler certification markets of earlier decades.

The economic context surrounding IT certification in 2018 was broadly favorable for both credential-seeking professionals and the organizations offering certification programs. Technology unemployment rates remained near historic lows in major labor markets, creating conditions where certified professionals could negotiate from positions of genuine market strength and where employers competed aggressively for candidates with validated skills in high-demand areas. Certification premium research published during this period consistently documented meaningful salary differentials between certified and non-certified professionals in equivalent roles, providing quantitative justification for the time and financial investment that certification pursuit required and reinforcing organizational willingness to subsidize employee certification efforts as a talent retention and development strategy.

Cloud Computing Certifications Dominated Professional Interest in 2018

Cloud computing credentials emerged as the single most sought-after category of IT certification in 2018, driven by the extraordinary pace of enterprise cloud adoption that was fundamentally reshaping how organizations procured, deployed, and managed computing infrastructure. Amazon Web Services maintained its dominant position as the leading public cloud provider, and AWS certifications correspondingly represented the most actively pursued cloud credentials in the market, with the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate examination consistently ranking among the highest-volume IT certification examinations administered globally. The AWS certification hierarchy spanning foundational, associate, and professional levels provided a structured progression pathway that guided professionals from entry-level cloud awareness through advanced architectural competency in a format that employers had learned to interpret and respect.

Microsoft Azure certifications experienced particularly dramatic demand growth during 2018 as enterprise Microsoft customers accelerated Azure adoption and as Microsoft’s aggressive investment in cloud service expansion created new professional specializations requiring validated expertise. The Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert credentials for cloud platform and cloud productivity addressed Azure-specific competencies that organizations implementing Microsoft cloud strategies actively sought, and Microsoft’s announcement during 2018 of a comprehensive credential restructuring toward role-based certifications generated significant professional interest and debate about how the transition would affect existing credential holders. Google Cloud Platform certifications occupied a smaller but growing share of professional attention in 2018, with the Google Certified Professional Data Engineer and Cloud Architect credentials gaining recognition among organizations building analytical and application infrastructure on Google’s platform.

Cybersecurity Certification Demand Reached Historic Highs

Information security certifications experienced demand growth in 2018 that reflected the increasingly visible and costly consequences of cybersecurity failures across public and private sector organizations worldwide. High-profile data breaches, ransomware attacks, nation-state cyber operations, and the implementation of significant regulatory frameworks including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation created organizational urgency around security capability building that translated directly into accelerated hiring of security professionals and corresponding demand for credentials that validated their competency. The global cybersecurity workforce gap, estimated by multiple research organizations as exceeding one million unfilled positions during this period, created market conditions where certified security professionals enjoyed exceptional career leverage and compensation outcomes.

CompTIA Security+ maintained its position as the most widely held entry-level security certification in 2018, valued particularly in defense contractor and government environments where it served as a baseline qualification for security roles under Department of Defense directive requirements. The Certified Information Systems Security Professional credential offered by ISC² continued to represent the gold standard for senior security professionals, with its combination of breadth across security domains, experience requirements, and peer endorsement process producing a credential that carried consistent premium recognition across virtually every industry sector. The Certified Ethical Hacker credential from EC-Council addressed the growing organizational need for offensive security skills, while newer credentials targeting specific security specializations including cloud security, application security, and industrial control system security addressed emerging professional niches that more established credentials had not been designed to cover.

Networking Certifications Evolved to Address Software-Defined Environments

The networking certification landscape in 2018 reflected a profession in genuine technological transition, as software-defined networking, network function virtualization, and cloud-native networking architectures challenged the relevance of credentials built around traditional hardware-centric networking paradigms. Cisco’s certification hierarchy remained the most comprehensive and widely recognized networking credential program in the market, with the Cisco Certified Network Associate and Cisco Certified Network Professional credentials serving as standard qualifications for networking roles across enterprise, service provider, and data center environments. However, Cisco’s 2018 announcement of planned changes to its certification program, which would ultimately be implemented in 2020, generated significant professional discussion about how the credential hierarchy would evolve to incorporate software-defined and automation-oriented networking competencies alongside traditional routing and switching expertise.

CompTIA Network+ served the entry-level networking credential market with a vendor-neutral credential that provided foundational networking knowledge applicable across multiple technology environments rather than the Cisco-specific expertise that CCNA validated. The Juniper Networks certification program maintained strong relevance in service provider and enterprise environments where Juniper equipment was deployed, offering an alternative vendor-specific credential hierarchy for professionals working in Juniper-centric organizations. Emerging networking specializations including software-defined wide area networking and network automation through Python scripting and Ansible playbooks were beginning to appear in job requirements during 2018 but had not yet been fully incorporated into established credential frameworks, creating a temporary gap between professional skill demand and available certification options.

Data and Analytics Credentials Expanded Significantly Throughout the Year

The data and analytics certification market in 2018 reflected the maturation of big data as a professional discipline and the emergence of data science as a defined career path with recognizable credential requirements. The proliferation of data-related credentials created both opportunity and confusion for professionals trying to identify which certifications would carry the strongest market recognition, as established technology vendors, professional associations, academic institutions, and newer credentialing organizations all competed to establish authoritative credentials in a market that was still developing shared standards for what data competency actually meant in professional practice.

Cloudera’s data platform certifications maintained strong recognition in organizations that had built Hadoop-based data infrastructure, with the Cloudera Certified Professional Data Engineer and Cloudera Certified Associate credentials serving as recognized validators of Hadoop ecosystem expertise. Hortonworks offered a competing credential program for its own Hadoop distribution, though the announced merger between Cloudera and Hortonworks during 2018 raised questions about how the two credential programs would eventually be reconciled. The SAS certification program retained strong recognition particularly in pharmaceutical, financial services, and academic research environments where SAS analytical software remained deeply embedded in analytical workflows despite growing competition from open source alternatives.

The Rise of Vendor-Neutral Credentials Across Multiple Domains

Vendor-neutral certifications experienced renewed professional interest during 2018 as the technology landscape fragmented across multiple competing platforms and organizations sought credentials that validated transferable skills rather than platform-specific knowledge that might depreciate rapidly if organizational technology choices changed. CompTIA’s portfolio of vendor-neutral credentials spanning foundational IT, networking, security, cloud, and project management represented the most comprehensive vendor-neutral credentialing program in the market, with credentials designed to complement rather than compete with vendor-specific credentials by validating the conceptual foundations that made platform-specific expertise more durable and adaptable.

The Project Management Professional credential offered by the Project Management Institute maintained its position as the dominant project management certification across the technology sector and beyond, valued for its rigorous experience requirements and comprehensive coverage of project management methodology that transcended any particular technology or industry context. ISACA’s portfolio including the Certified Information Systems Auditor and Certified Information Security Manager credentials served governance, risk, and compliance professionals with vendor-neutral credentials that validated domain expertise rather than platform proficiency. The ITIL framework certifications retained strong recognition in IT service management contexts, with ITIL Foundation serving as a widely held baseline credential and the higher-level ITIL practitioner and expert credentials differentiating professionals with advanced service management expertise.

Salary Premiums and Return on Investment Metrics From 2018 Research

Compensation research published during 2018 consistently documented meaningful salary premiums associated with specific certifications, providing empirical support for certification investment decisions that professionals and their employers made based on previously anecdotal evidence. Global Knowledge’s annual IT skills and salary report, one of the most comprehensive compensation surveys in the technology sector, documented that certified professionals earned meaningfully higher average salaries than non-certified counterparts across virtually every technology domain examined. The premium varied considerably by certification, with specialized credentials in high-demand areas like cloud architecture, cybersecurity, and data engineering associated with larger premiums than foundational credentials in more commoditized skill areas.

The return on investment calculation for individual certification pursuits in 2018 required consideration of multiple factors beyond simple salary differential, including examination fees, study material costs, training course investments, time allocated to preparation, and the probability of first-attempt examination success given realistic assessment of current knowledge gaps. Professionals who approached certification investment with systematic analysis of these factors and honest assessment of how specific credentials aligned with their target career trajectories consistently achieved better returns than those who pursued certifications based on general reputation or peer influence without verifying alignment with their specific market context. Employer certification reimbursement programs, offered by a substantial proportion of technology employers in 2018, significantly improved return on investment calculations for professionals fortunate enough to work in organizations with generous education benefit programs.

The Impact of Online Learning on Certification Preparation in 2018

The ecosystem of online learning resources available to IT certification candidates reached a level of quality, variety, and accessibility in 2018 that fundamentally changed how professionals prepared for certification examinations compared to the instructor-led training dominated preparation paradigm of earlier decades. Platforms including Pluralsight, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, Coursera, and A Cloud Guru offered video-based certification preparation courses at price points dramatically lower than traditional classroom training, making high-quality preparation content accessible to professionals regardless of employer training budgets or geographic proximity to authorized training centers.

The quality variation among online certification preparation resources created a navigation challenge for candidates who lacked the domain expertise to independently evaluate course accuracy and comprehensiveness before committing to a preparation path. Community resources including certification-specific subreddits, TechExams forums, and study group channels on platforms like Discord emerged as valuable peer intelligence sources where candidates shared experiences with specific preparation materials and examination conditions that informed smarter resource selection decisions. Practice examination platforms including Boson, MeasureUp, and Whizlabs provided assessment tools that helped candidates evaluate preparation readiness more accurately than self-assessment alone, identifying specific knowledge gaps that warranted focused review before scheduling actual examinations.

Examination Delivery Evolution and Security Developments in 2018

The logistics of IT certification examination delivery continued evolving in 2018 as testing organizations responded to persistent challenges around examination security, accessibility, and candidate experience. Pearson VUE and Prometric maintained their dominant positions as the primary examination delivery networks for major certification programs, operating thousands of testing centers globally and increasingly offering online proctored examination options that allowed candidates to test from home or office environments under remote supervision rather than traveling to physical testing centers. The expansion of online proctored delivery improved accessibility particularly for candidates in regions with limited testing center density, though technical requirements and proctoring protocols created friction that some candidates found more burdensome than traditional center-based examination.

Brain dump websites that distributed actual examination questions represented a persistent security challenge for certification programs throughout 2018, as the economic incentives for distributing compromised examination content remained strong despite the legal and ethical violations involved. Major certification bodies invested in examination question refresh cycles, statistical detection of anomalous scoring patterns, and enforcement actions against known brain dump distributors, though completely eliminating the problem proved impossible given the decentralized nature of online content distribution. The professional consequences for candidates caught using brain dump materials ranged from examination invalidation and temporary testing bans to permanent credential revocation, consequences that represented significant career damage for professionals whose reputations depended on credential integrity.

Enterprise Certification Programs and Organizational Workforce Development

Large technology employers approached IT certification in 2018 through organized workforce development programs that went considerably beyond simple reimbursement of individual certification expenses into strategic talent management initiatives connecting certification achievement to career development frameworks, compensation structures, and succession planning processes. Organizations that had made significant investments in specific technology platforms found particular value in certification programs because they provided a standardized mechanism for assessing and developing the specialized expertise those platforms required across employee populations that might otherwise develop inconsistent and difficult-to-compare skill profiles through unstructured on-the-job experience.

IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, and other major technology vendors offered partner certification requirements that made employee certification achievement a component of partnership tier qualification, creating organizational incentives for certification investment that went beyond individual career development into business relationship management. Technology consulting and systems integration firms tracked certification achievement by technology domain as a component of their capability marketing to enterprise clients, using certified professional headcounts as evidence of specialized expertise in competitive procurement processes where technical capability differentiation influenced contract awards. This organizational dimension of certification demand created a layer of structural market support for specific credential programs that supplemented individual professional demand and helped stabilize the market position of certifications that had achieved strong vendor or partnership ecosystem recognition.

Emerging Technology Certifications Beginning to Appear in 2018

The credential ecosystem in 2018 was beginning to incorporate certifications addressing emerging technology disciplines that had not yet developed the established professional communities and standardized competency frameworks that more mature certification domains possessed. Artificial intelligence and machine learning credentials were beginning to appear from both academic institutions offering professional certificates and technology vendors offering platform-specific credentials for their AI services, though the absence of consensus around what AI competency meant in professional practice made it difficult for employers to interpret these credentials consistently. Blockchain certifications from organizations including the Linux Foundation and various specialized credentialing bodies addressed growing enterprise interest in distributed ledger technology, though the distance between blockchain enthusiasm and actual production deployment in most organizations made employer recognition of these credentials inconsistent.

Internet of Things certifications were beginning to emerge in 2018 from vendors including Cisco, which incorporated IoT specializations into its networking certification hierarchy, and from professional associations including CompTIA, which was developing IoT-related credential content for eventual inclusion in its portfolio. The challenge facing emerging technology certifications in 2018 was establishing sufficient market recognition among employers before the rapid evolution of the underlying technologies made specific credential content obsolete, a timing problem that mature technology certifications had resolved through years of sustained deployment but that newer credentials necessarily faced without the benefit of established track records.

Geographic Variations in Certification Value Across Global Markets

The professional value of specific IT certifications varied considerably across geographic markets in 2018, reflecting differences in technology adoption patterns, employer familiarity with specific credential programs, regulatory requirements affecting technology roles, and the relative supply and demand balance for certified professionals in different labor markets. North American markets, particularly in technology-concentrated metropolitan areas, showed the broadest recognition of the widest range of certification programs and the highest salary premiums associated with certifications in high-demand areas like cloud and cybersecurity. European markets showed strong recognition of vendor credentials from major technology providers alongside distinctive demand for GDPR-related privacy and compliance credentials that the regulation’s implementation deadline created urgency around during 2018.

Asia-Pacific markets demonstrated particularly strong growth in certification activity during 2018 as technology sector expansion in countries including India, China, Australia, Singapore, and Japan created substantial demand for validated technical credentials that helped employers navigate large candidate pools and helped professionals differentiate themselves in competitive job markets. The global recognition of credentials from major technology vendors including Cisco, Microsoft, AWS, and CompTIA made these certifications particularly valuable in markets where professionals aspired to international career mobility, as these credentials communicated consistent professional signals across different national employment contexts in ways that locally recognized credentials could not replicate.

Conclusion

The IT certification market of 2018 presented technology professionals with an unprecedented range of credentialing opportunities distributed across technology domains, vendor ecosystems, career levels, and professional specializations that reflected both the extraordinary breadth of the contemporary technology landscape and the maturation of certification as a professional development institution. The market dynamics of 2018, characterized by strong employer demand, favorable compensation outcomes for certified professionals, accessible preparation resources, and expanding examination delivery options, created conditions as favorable for certification investment as any in the history of the profession. Professionals who approached these conditions strategically, selecting credentials aligned with genuine market demand in their target industry and geography while investing in preparation depth that developed real competency rather than superficial examination readiness, consistently achieved career outcomes that justified their investment many times over.

The structural forces shaping the 2018 certification market pointed clearly toward continued expansion and evolution in the years immediately following. Cloud adoption was accelerating rather than plateauing, cybersecurity threats were growing more sophisticated rather than abating, data volumes and analytical ambitions were expanding rather than stabilizing, and emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, blockchain, and the Internet of Things were beginning the transition from experimental curiosity to production deployment that would eventually generate substantial new credential demand. Professionals who established strong certification foundations in 2018 across cloud, security, networking, and data domains positioned themselves to extend those foundations into emerging specializations as the market developed the credential frameworks and employer recognition patterns needed to make emerging technology credentials professionally valuable.

The IT certification market of 2018 ultimately reflected something deeper than employment market dynamics and professional development economics, representing the technology profession’s ongoing effort to create shared standards for competency that allow individuals to demonstrate expertise credibly and organizations to identify and develop talent efficiently across an industry characterized by rapid change, diverse specialization, and global scale. That effort was imperfect in 2018 as it has always been, complicated by examination security challenges, credential proliferation, marketing-driven credential inflation, and the inherent difficulty of assessing genuine competency through standardized testing. But the underlying purpose remained sound and the market’s continued growth demonstrated that certifications delivered sufficient value across sufficient professional contexts to sustain robust investment from the professionals, employers, training organizations, and technology vendors whose collective participation made the certification ecosystem function as a meaningful professional institution.