Top 50 IT Certifications And Skills To Have

Almost no day goes by where I am not asked what is the cool thing to be doing in IT, should I get certified and if so in what and what should I be doing for my career in the long term.

I found the following list on ComputerWorld who sourced the Foote Partners IT Skills and Certifications Hot Lists for July 2010.

I think there are some skill sets not listed that should be (maybe they could have just added SAP one time and said all modules) like PHP, Java, .Net, etc but it does also depends on who replied to the survey (how big a company, industries, U.S. or global, etc.)

But this is a good place to start when thinking about what skills one may want to pick up, learn and get better at:

IT Certifications

1. SAS Certified Base Programmer

2. Red Hat Certified Security Specialist

3. CompTIA Security+

4. SAS Certified Advanced Programmer

5. VMware Certified Professional 

6. GIAC Security Essentials Certification

7. Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator

8. Cisco Certified Network Professional

9. Cisco Certified Internetwork Professional

10. Red Hat Certified Technician

11. HP Accredited Integration Specialist

12. Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (all)

13. Sun Certified Systems Administrator for Solaris

14. Microsoft Certified Database Administrator

15. Cisco Certified Design Professional

16. GIAC Certified Incident Handler

17. CyberSecurity Forensic Analyst

18. Certification Authorization Professional

19. Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (virtualization)

20. GIAC Security Audit Essentials

21. GIAC Secure Software Programmer

22. IBM Certified Specialist - AIX Basic Ops

23. Avaya Certified Specialist

24. Check Point Certified Security Administrator

25. GIAC Certified Windows Security Administrator

Noncertified IT Skills

1. SAP Basis components

2. RAD/extreme programming/agile programming

3. Virtual private networks

4. Business continuity and disaster recovery planning

5. Web 2.0 skills (AJAX, Adobe Flex, Adobe Flash, JavaScript, JSON)

6. Windows 7

7. SAP Web Application Server

8. SAN/storage administration

9. RFID/wireless sensors

10. Python

11. HTML/DHTML/XHTML

12. Business performance management software/systems

13. SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

14. SAP EBP (Enterprise Buyer Professional)

15. SAP FI -- FSCM (Financial Accounting -- Financial Supply Chain Management)

16. Linux

17. Ruby/Ruby on Rails

18. Social networks (tagging, virtual communities, social bookmarking, etc.)

19. SAP SCM (Supply Chain Management)

20. SAP SRM (Supplier Relationship Management)

21. ITIL v3 Foundation

22. SAP WM (Warehouse Management)

23. Web Dynapro

24. SAP APO (Advanced Planner and Optimizer)

25. SAP PP (Production Planning)

Comments

[Kirk Walton]

A lot of security certifications on here, yet they missed (by far) the most important one. The CISSP - Certified Information Systems Security Professional. By far the most recognized one in the industry. I'd recommend looking at that first before any of the other ones listed on here, then specialize from that point.