Salary Survey Extra is a series of periodic dispatches that give added insight into the findings of our most recent Salary Survey. These posts contain previously unpublished Salary Survey data.

With the advent of GDPR in the European Union earlier this year, information privacy professionals have perhaps never been busier, or in greater demand. It’s a great time to have the IAPP’s Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) credential in your back pocket, especially from a compensation standpoint. CIPP was the seventh-highest salaried cert in our Salary Survey 75 list for 2018.

Here’s what the salary picture looks like for CIPP holders who responded to the Salary Survey:

All U.S. Respondents
Average Annual Salary: $139,380
Median Annual Salary: $135,750
How satisfied are you with your current salary?
Completely Satisfied: 6.5 percent
Very Satisfied: 17.6 percent
Satisfied: 35.3 percent
Not Very Satisfied: 35.3 percent
Not At All Satisfied: 5.3 percent

To all appearances, there’s no restriction by country on IAPP certification, so our lack of information about non-U.S. CIPPs is simply owing to the standard Salary Survey participation quirk: lots of responses from U.S.-based credential holders, mostly crickets from everyone else. Among CIPP-certified respondents in the United States, most are men (81.2 percent of those surveyed), but there is a substantial segment of women who have the cert.

The CIPP holders we did hear from are mostly a sage and settled group. Just 12.5 percent of respondents are between the ages of 25 and 34, with 18.8 percent between the ages of 35 and 44. Everyone else is either between the ages of 45 and 54 (31.3 percent of respondents) or between the ages of 55 and 64 (37.4 percent).

The highest level of education completed by most CIPP holders is either a master’s degree (50.5 percent of those surveyed) or bachelor’s degree (31.3 percent), with a further 6.3 percent holding doctorates. There’s not much room for anyone without a university background, though we did hear from a small group (6.3 percent of those surveyed) who didn’t go any further with their formal education than completing some level of post-high school technical training, as well as from a handful of credential holders (5.6 percent) who are currently in school.

Full-time employment and CIPP holders is rock-solid at 94.1 percent, and the remaining 5.9 percent all have part-time jobs — we didn’t hear from anyone who is presently out of work. Among those with full-time jobs, only a handful (13.1 percent of respondents) have a standard 40-hour work week. Most put in between 41 and 50 hours per week (56.3 percent of respondents) or more than 50 hours per week (30.6 percent).

In terms of organizational standing, most CIPP holders are senior officials at the places where they work. The largest single group of credential holders in the survey — though not by much — is those at the senior specialist level (29.6 percent of respondents), with everyone else ranking as either a manager (13.5 percent), senior manager (11.2 percent), director (28.8 percent), or executive (10.6 percent).

As you might expect based on age, there’s quite a bit of experience in this group, with 70.6 percent of those surveyed having worked in a role that directly utilizes one or more of their certified skills for more than a decade. Everyone has been in the game for between 9 and 10 years (6 percent of those surveyed), between 3 and 5 years (11.7 percent) or between zero years (1 to 11 months) and two years (11.7 percent).

Finally, here’s the view of CIPP holders on key questions from the survey about how certification impacts job performance:

At my current job I use skills learned or enhanced through certification:
Several times a day: 64.7 percent
Several times a week: 29.4 percent
Several times a month: [No responses]
Occasionally: [No responses]
Rarely: 5.9 percent

Since becoming certified, I feel there is greater demand for my skills.
Strongly agree: 64.7 percent
Agree: 23.5 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 5.9 percent
Disagree: [No responses]
Strongly Disagree: 5.9 percent

Becoming certified has increased my problem-solving skills.
Strongly agree: 52.9 percent
Agree: 35.3 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 7.1 percent
Disagree: [No responses]
Strongly Disagree: 4.7 percent

Becoming certified has increased my workplace productivity.
Strongly agree: 47.1 percent
Agree: 29.4 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 17.6 percent
Disagree: [No responses]
Strongly Disagree: 5.9 percent