Which IT certifications do employers actually ask for?
We read 41,378 open tech job postings. 10% name at least one certification. PMP is named by the most employers (802), and networking jobs ask for certifications more than any other: 50% of them.
Where certifications matter
Share of postings in each job family that name at least one certification, and that require one. Networking leads.
Name a certification
Require one
Networking
Named most:
- Cisco CCNP 32%
- Cisco CCNA 24%
- Cisco CCIE 14%
Security
Named most:
- CISSP 19%
- GIAC (any) 10%
- CISM 9%
Enterprise platforms
Named most:
- Salesforce certification (any) 24%
- PMP 2%
- ITIL certification 1%
Project & program management
Named most:
- PMP 21%
- PRINCE2 3%
- Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) 3%
IT & systems
Named most:
- CompTIA A+ / Network+ / CySA+ / CASP+ 9%
- CompTIA Security+ 7%
- ITIL certification 4%
Cloud & devops
Named most:
- AWS certification (any) 8%
- Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) 4%
- Azure certification (any) 4%
The most recognised certifications
Ranked by how many different employers name them. Recognition is the closest thing in the data to a certification's reputation.
| Certification | Employers | Postings | Required | Named most in | Senior or above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PMP | 802 | 1,838 | 25% | project & program management (21%) | 92% |
| CISSP | 594 | 1,369 | 35% | security (19%) | 97% |
| AWS certification (any) | 428 | 915 | 27% | cloud & devops (8%) | 94% |
| CompTIA Security+ | 356 | 867 | 51% | networking (10%) | 76% |
| CISM | 353 | 586 | 31% | security (9%) | 96% |
| GIAC (any) | 302 | 580 | 34% | security (10%) | 90% |
| CompTIA A+ / Network+ / CySA+ / CASP+ | 296 | 654 | 41% | networking (9%) | 68% |
| Azure certification (any) | 280 | 585 | 30% | cloud & devops (4%) | 93% |
| Salesforce certification (any) | 254 | 412 | 41% | enterprise platforms (24%) | 95% |
| CISA (auditor) | 231 | 368 | 31% | security (5%) | 96% |
| Cisco CCNA | 197 | 440 | 35% | networking (24%) | 83% |
| CCSP | 196 | 305 | 39% | security (5%) | 98% |
| OSCP / OffSec | 192 | 280 | 18% | security (6%) | 95% |
| ITIL certification | 163 | 298 | 32% | networking (4%) | 87% |
| Cisco CCNP | 162 | 392 | 37% | networking (32%) | 95% |
| Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) | 140 | 231 | 23% | cloud & devops (4%) | 96% |
| Google Cloud certification (any) | 129 | 263 | 33% | cloud & devops (2%) | 95% |
| PRINCE2 | 127 | 226 | 35% | project & program management (3%) | 98% |
| AWS Security – Specialty | 122 | 155 | 23% | security (3%) | 95% |
| Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) | 118 | 201 | 28% | security (3%) | 91% |
| Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) | 118 | 167 | 40% | project & program management (3%) | 92% |
| Cisco CCIE | 85 | 176 | 37% | networking (14%) | 100% |
| Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) | 84 | 134 | 36% | cloud & devops (1%) | 99% |
| Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) | 74 | 115 | 27% | cloud & devops (2%) | 97% |
| AWS Solutions Architect – Professional | 72 | 101 | 24% | cloud & devops (1%) | 100% |
| Azure Administrator (AZ-104) | 67 | 94 | 34% | IT & systems (1%) | 81% |
| Certified Kubernetes App Developer (CKAD) | 66 | 109 | 17% | cloud & devops (2%) | 97% |
| Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) | 54 | 72 | 42% | networking (2%) | 69% |
| AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner | 51 | 81 | 30% | security (0.3%) | 61% |
| Google Professional Cloud Architect | 50 | 69 | 25% | cloud & devops (0.7%) | 95% |
| SAFe certification | 49 | 59 | 36% | project & program management (0.6%) | – |
| ISTQB | 46 | 72 | 42% | QA & testing (3%) | – |
| Professional Scrum Master (PSM) | 44 | 51 | 37% | project & program management (0.8%) | – |
| Databricks certification | 43 | 161 | 28% | cloud & devops (2%) | 100% |
| AWS Solutions Architect – Associate | 39 | 48 | 35% | cloud & devops (0.7%) | – |
| HashiCorp Terraform Associate | 39 | 52 | 38% | cloud & devops (0.9%) | 100% |
| Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) | 34 | 38 | 32% | IT & systems (0.6%) | – |
| Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) | 29 | 37 | 32% | IT & systems (0.8%) | – |
| Snowflake SnowPro | 18 | 41 | 41% | data & AI (0.2%) | – |
| Azure Developer (AZ-204) | 15 | 31 | 16% | software development (0.1%) | – |
Required: share of the postings naming it that ask for it outside nice-to-haves. Senior or above: share of those postings whose title says senior, staff, principal or lead. “(any)” rows count postings that name the vendor's certifications without one exam. Certifications named by at least 50 employers have their own page (linked).
Gate or bonus?
Most certifications appear as a nice-to-have. A few are hard requirements.
Required most often (of the postings that name them)
Entry certificates vs prestige certificates
Who the postings are for tells you what a certification signals.
Status signals
Named almost only in senior, staff and lead postings, by many employers.
- CISSP 97% senior+ · 594 employers
- CISM 96% senior+ · 353 employers
- Salesforce certification (any) 95% senior+ · 254 employers
- CISA (auditor) 96% senior+ · 231 employers
- CCSP 98% senior+ · 196 employers
- OSCP / OffSec 95% senior+ · 192 employers
Entry tickets
The highest share of junior and intern postings.
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner 32% junior or intern
- Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) 19% junior or intern
- CompTIA A+ / Network+ / CySA+ / CASP+ 18% junior or intern
- CompTIA Security+ 13% junior or intern
- Cisco CCNA 11% junior or intern
- ITIL certification 8% junior or intern
Do certifications pay more?
No. Jobs that name a certification advertise a median −9.5% compared with similar jobs (same job family, same level) at employers that never name one. That looks like certificates lower pay, but the data says otherwise. Three numbers explain it.
- +0.6%
These employers don't pay less overall
Employers that name a certification somewhere advertise their other jobs, the ones without a certification, at the same level as everyone else (8,734 postings at 841 employers).
- 0%
The same job with or without a certificate pays the same
Where a company advertises the same kind of job both with and without a certification (450 postings, 33% of the salaried ones), the version that names a certification pays the same as its sibling.
- −15%
The gap sits in teams where every job asks for one
Most of the gap comes from teams where every advertised job in that family names a certification (560 postings). Those jobs advertise less than similar jobs elsewhere, and there is no version without the certificate to compare them with.
By certification
| Certification | vs sibling job, same company | vs similar jobs, all companies | Postings compared |
|---|---|---|---|
| CISM | +4.4% | −7.9% | 115 |
| OSCP / OffSec | +1.0% | −1.1% | 31 |
| Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) | 0% | −5.0% | 32 |
| PMP | 0% | −1.0% | 479 |
| CISSP | 0% | −7.5% | 239 |
| CompTIA Security+ | 0% | −17% | 182 |
| Salesforce certification (any) | 0% | −5.3% | 47 |
| CCSP | 0% | −7.0% | 42 |
| ITIL certification | 0% | −13% | 36 |
| Databricks certification | 0% | +3.0% | 42 |
| Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) | −2.5% | −9.1% | 36 |
| GIAC (any) | −4.0% | −16% | 91 |
| CISA (auditor) | −4.0% | −7.9% | 93 |
| CompTIA A+ / Network+ / CySA+ / CASP+ | −13% | −23% | 111 |
| Cisco CCNA | −13% | −14% | 67 |
| Cisco CCNP | −16% | −3.6% | 47 |
“Sibling job”: a posting without a certification at the same company, in the same job family and at the same level; only postings that have one are compared, which is why the counts are smaller. CompTIA A+ / Network+ / CySA+ / CASP+, Cisco CCNA and Cisco CCNP pay less even next to a sibling job. Only US postings in US dollars, with at least 30 postings behind each row.
How we count
- Source. 199,799 unique open postings from company job boards on Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, crawled November 2026. 41,378 of them are in the tech job families shown here.
- Named certifications only. We count a certification when a posting names it (“CISSP”, “AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate”), not the bare word “certified”. Company certifications (SOC 2, ISO 27001) and certifications offered as a benefit (“we pay for your AWS certification”) don't count.
- Required, nice to have or instead of experience. Read from the section and the sentence each mention sits in.
- Job families. Assigned from the job title. They are broad groups (security, cloud & devops, networking…), not exact roles.
- Checked by hand. We checked 150 random matches the extractor had never been tuned on: 148 named the right certification and 147 had the right type (required, nice to have, instead of experience).
- What we can't measure yet. Whether a certification gets a particular person hired. That needs outcomes from people who earned one; we'll publish them once we have enough answers.
- Limits. Companies that hire through these job boards lean towards tech firms and the United States. A posting is what an employer asks for, not who they end up hiring.
Download the data (JSON): every number on this page. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: credit Coursecrit with a link to this page.
Only certifications named in at least 30 postings are shown.
FAQ
Will a certification help me get a job?
It depends on the job family. In networking (23% of postings require one), security (10% of postings require one) and enterprise platforms (13% of postings require one), a certification is often a hard filter: without it, an application can be screened out before a person reads it. In QA & testing, data & AI, engineering management and software development, fewer than 5% of postings even mention one, so your time is usually better spent on the skills those postings list.
Which certification is the most recognised by employers?
PMP is named by 802 employers in our sample, followed by CISSP (594), AWS certification (any) (428) and CompTIA Security+ (356). Recognition is concentrated: most certifications are named by a few dozen employers at most.
Do software developers need certifications?
Rarely. Only 1% of software development postings name any certification and 0.5% require one. Employers hiring developers look at skills and experience; see our career skills reports for what they ask for.
Do certifications increase salary?
Not in advertised pay. Jobs that name a certification advertise a median −9.5% compared with similar jobs at employers that never name one. Where a company advertises the same kind of job both with and without a certification, the two pay the same. The gap sits in teams where every job asks for a certification (−15%): the requirement marks a kind of job that advertises less; for the same job at the same company, it makes no visible difference to pay.
Can a certification replace experience or a degree?
Rarely in writing: only 3% of certification mentions offer one explicitly instead of experience or a degree.
Not sure a certification is your gap?
Tick the skills you have and see what employers in your target role ask for most.