He also pointed out that most certifications are in the areas of networking, systems, security and databases, but that is only a small section of what IT professionals do. Many do application development and they need to know more than coding skills – who’s using the software, the business units of the company and what they need to accomplish and so on. So when managers hire IT people their technical skill wasn’t necessarily the first criteria.

Asked why wages for those with certifications have rebounded, Foote replied that “it couldn’t go any lower.” But he also said the numbers are being moved by better salaries for those with cloud computing and big data rated skills.

He also point out that there are two kinds of certifications: Those sponsored by vendors, and those that are vendor-neutral –like in Agile development. The later are the ones that are growing.

One other thing Foote observed from the 2Q figures, what he called the “stickiness” of IT security positions. Despite his believe that employers are “radically underpaying” these staffers, they are hanging in and actually saw an average salary increase of 5.6 per cent in the past year.

But, he cautioned, he believes managers aren’t looking so much for people with security certifications as they are for those with communications skills, needed to help persuade the lines of business they work with of the value of the C-level in investing more in protecting the company.