One self-investment that does provide a tangible and relatively immediate return is technical certification. More than half (51 percent) of the millions of IT and technical professionals invest in themselves in this manner every year. The majority of technical certificants pay for or at least share the costs of technical certification with their employers. They have real skin in the game-are making a very real investment in themselves. So it is natural that with such an investment made, these professionals expect more than a feel-good result from their certifications-they expect an economic return.

According to the respondents to Certification Magazine's most recent survey, the current technical-certification market is both large and active. Technical certificants hold more certifications now than last year-an increase of some 29 percent over 2000-this in the face of a sluggish technology industry. According to the study results, the average certificant currently holds nearly four (3.86 on average) different technical certifications. Not only do these IT professionals have multiple certifications now, they plan to aggressively pursue even more in the future. Seventy-nine percent of the professionals surveyed said they plan to pursue additional certifications in the coming year.

A comparison is in order. Most IT certified professionals have been in the IT industry for 8.38 years. Since their first certification, they have attained, on average, one new certification per year. They have a history of education, as 65 percent have college degrees, with 18 percent having graduate and professional degrees. The 35 percent who are not college graduates have taken classes at technical colleges and institutes. The largest number (34 percent of study respondents) of these technical certificants work jobs in networking-network engineering, network management and network administration. The vast majority of certificants studied were primarily on the Windows platform (73 percent), with 18 percent citing Linux/UNIX as their primary platform.

These IT professionals, on average, have been at their current company for the past four years (4.18 years) and have been in the same job position for a little longer than three years (3.1 years). Their companies tend to be large-averaging 560 employees. Eighty-seven percent of the study respondents were W-2 employees, and 13 percent were 1099 contractors. The average salary of the certificants studied was $55,577.