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 These posts contain previously unpublished Salary Survey data.

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There’s a website everywhere you look, but it’s definitely not the case that all websites are created equal. Some are inarguably better constructed than most, some are better looking than most and some are more efficient and functional than most. Some are all of these things, and that usually requires the expertise of someone with a strong knowledge of web design and development.

One way to start accruing that body of knowledge is to lock down the CIW Web Foundations Associate certification, No. 54 on our most recent Salary Survey 75 list. Those who complete the credential, as noted at the CIW Web Foundations Associate website, are “ready to pursue specialties in Web design, e-commerce, JavaScript, databases and other fields.”

Here’s what the salary picture looks like for CIW Web Foundations Associate holders who responded to the Salary Survey:

All U.S. Respondents
Average Annual Salary: $96,380
Median Annual Salary: $90,630
How satisfied are you with your current salary?
Completely Satisfied: [No responses]
Very Satisfied: 35.3 percent
Satisfied: 35.3 percent
Not Very Satisfied: 17.6 percent
Not At All Satisfied: 11.8 percent

The CIW certification program has global reach, but we didn’t hear from enough credential holders living and working outside the United States to formulate good data. So everything we’ve got here applies solely to U.S.-based CIW Web Foundations Associate holders.

Most of those we heard from, as is typical of the IT realm, are men: 83.3 percent of CIW Web Foundations Associate holders who participated in the survey are male, with 11.1 percent who are female, and 5.6 percent who chose not to identify their gender. In terms of age, our pool of respondents is deepest between the ages of 35 and 44, where 42.9 percent of those surveyed show up. Everyone else falls either between the ages of 25 and 34 (25.7 percent), between the ages of 45 and 54 (28.6 percent), or between the ages of 55 and 64 (2.8 percent).

More than 80 percent of the CIW Web Foundations Associate holders who responded to the survey have an educational background that includes time spent at a college or university. The highest level of formal education completed by most CIW Web Foundations Associate holders is either a bachelor’s degree (25.7 percent), master’s degree (51.4 percent), associate’s degree (8.6 percent), or doctorate (2.7 percent). The outliers are the 3.3 percent of those surveyed who exited the realm of formal education after completing some level of post-high school technical training, the 3 percent whose highest education attainment is a high school diploma, the 2.9 percent who are currently in school, and 2.4 percent who entered the workforce with no formal education.

Nearly all of the CIW Web Foundations Associate holders who participated in the survey are employed full-time (97.2 percent of respondents), with the remaining 2.8 percent in part-time jobs. Among those who have full-time jobs, 31.4 percent are at work for the standard 40 hours per week, with 48.6 percent putting in between 41 and 50 hours per week. The remaining 12 percent of those surveyed put either more than 50 hours per week (5.7 percent) or between 31 and 39 hours per week (14.3 percent).

In the COVID-19 era, tech jobs often come with a degree of flexibility to work from home, and many web specialists in the modern landscape are freelancers. Among those who responded to the survey, however, 40 percent work from home fewer than 10 hours per week, and 8.4 percent work from home for between 10 and 20 hours per week. In the middle are 5.7 percent of respondents who work from home between 21 and 30 hours per week and 3 percent who work from from home between 31 and 39 hours per week. That leaves 43 percent of respondents who handle their entire weekly schedule in a pants-optional environment, putting in either 40 hours per week from home (8.6 percent) or more than 40 per week from home (34.3 percent).

In terms of workplace standing, the largest single group of CIW Web Foundations Associate holders we heard from, 47.2 percent, are at the senior specialist level. The rest, in descending order, are either specialists (13.9 percent), executives (11.1 percent), managers (8.5 percent), rank-and-file employees (8.2 percent), senior managers (5.7 percent), or directors (5.4 percent).

Nearly half (44.4 percent) of the CIW Web Foundations Associate holders who responded to the survey are website veterans, having worked in a role that directly utilizes one or more of their certified skills for more than a decade. The rest have been plying their certified skills for either between zero years (1 to 11 months) and 2 years (22.2 percent of those surveyed), between 3 and 5 years (also 11.1 percent), between 6 and 8 years (5.6 percent), or between 9 and 10 years (16.7 percent).

Finally, here’s the view of CIW Web Foundations Associate 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: 41.7 percent
Several times a week: 36.1 percent
Several times a month: 11.1 percent
Occasionally: 8.3 percent
Rarely: 2.8 percent

Since becoming certified, I feel there is greater demand for my skills.
Strongly agree: 36.2 percent
Agree: 36.1 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 19.4 percent
Disagree: 5.7 percent
Strongly Disagree: 2.6 percent

Becoming certified has increased my problem-solving skills.
Strongly agree: 30.6 percent
Agree: 44.4 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 13.9 percent
Disagree: 5.7 percent
Strongly Disagree: 5.4 percent

Becoming certified has increased my workplace productivity.
Strongly agree: 36.1 percent
Agree: 27.8 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 22.2 percent
Disagree: 8.3 percent
Strongly Disagree: 5.6 percent

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