A new report from Brainbench detailing
the concentrations of certified IT pros in ten key skills areas finds that San
Francisco has overtaken Seattle/Tacoma for the highest “IT IQ”.
New additions to this year’s tech-savvy metro areas -those with the highest
concentrations of certified IT pros- include New York/New Jersey/Connecticut,
Washington/Baltimore and Denver/Boulder.
The Brainbench
Global IT IQ Report ranks the concentrations of IT skills around the world.
In addition to showing country data, the report details the IT skills base
within major metropolitan areas within the U.S. for 2001.
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For the U.S. portion of the report, the Chantilly, Va.-based Brainbench mined
its database of almost five million tests and certifications in ten skills
areas: Active Server Pages, C, C++, Computer Technical Support, HTML 3.2, HTML
4.0, Java 1, Java 2, Javascript and Network Technical Support.
The total number of all certified professionals was calculated for more than
200 metropolitan statistical areas within the U.S. and ranked according to the
total number of certifications received.
The top ten U.S. metropolitan areas are:
- 1. San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose
- 2. New York/Northern/New Jersey/Long Island/Connecticut
- 3. Washington/Baltimore
- 4. Chicago/Gary/Lake County
- 5. Dallas/Fort Worth
- 6. Los Angeles/Anaheim/Riverside
- 7. Atlanta
- 8. Detroit/Ann Arbor
- 9. Seattle/Tacoma
- 10. Denver/Boulder
Metropolitan areas dropping off this year’s list include Raleigh/Durham,
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Milwaukee/Racine, Greensboro/Winston-Salem/Highpoint, St.
Louis, Austin, Dayton/Springfield, and Las Vegas.
“We have seen tremendous growth in demand for certifications over the last
year, and the new Global IT IQ Report shows how strongly IT professionals in
leading metropolitan areas are embracing the credibility that comes with
certification,” said Mike Russiello, Brainbench’s president and CEO. “When you
couple this data with the fact that in our recent salary survey of certified IT
professionals out-earned their non-certified counterparts, it becomes clear
that people are receiving certifications because they have true professional
and economic benefits.”
Russiello said employers are also finding that there are uses for certification
that go beyond a strict skills assessment. Many firms, he said, are now using
certifications in order to better redeploy staff resources, as well as to bring
more focus to their training efforts.
Brainbench also collected statistics on the nations with the most certified IT pros. The top-10 list includes:
- 1. United States
- 2. India
- 3. Russian Federation
- 4. Ukraine
- 5. Canada
- 6. Romania
- 7. United Kingdom
- 8. Bulgaria
- 9. Pakistan
- 10. Australia
Brainbench has more than 3.5 million registered users and provides more than
360 professional online certification exams and employment assessments in
information technology, finance, sales, administration, healthcare and other
categories.
Roy Mark is managing editor of DC.internet.com, where this story first appeared.