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 These posts contain previously unpublished Salary Survey data.

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There are 19 different certifications available at the “deployment professional” level inside the IBM information technology ecosystem. So you’ll have to do some narrowing of the scope of your technology deployment interests before becoming an IBM Certified Deployment Professional (No. 53 on our most recent Salary Survey 75 list).

Here what the salary picture looks like for IBM Certified Deployment Professional holders who responded to the Salary Survey:

All U.S. Respondents
Average Annual Salary: $97,670
Median Annual Salary: $77,500
How satisfied are you with your current salary?
Completely Satisfied: 30 percent
Very Satisfied: 10.3 percent
Satisfied: 44.7 percent
Not Very Satisfied: 15 percent
Not At All Satisfied: [No responses]

The long-lived IBM professional certification program has global reach, but we didn't hear from enough IBM Certified Deployment Professional holders who live outside the United States to include their data here. So everything you'll read is referencing only credential holders who live in the United States.

Contrary to general industry biases, women abound in this neck of the IT woods: 25.9 percent of IBM Certified Deployment Professional holders who responded to the survey are female. (Every other respondent in the group identified his gender as male.) Generally speaking, the pool of credential holders is somewhat youthful, with 75 percent of those surveyed younger than 45, either between the ages of 19 and 24 (3.7 percent), between the ages of 25 and 34 (14.8 percent), or between the ages of 35 and 44 (66.7 percent). The remaining 15 percent of respondents are either between the ages of 45 and 54 (7.6 percent) or between the ages of 55 and 64 (7.2 percent).

Roughly 85 percent of IBM Certified Deployment Professional holders who responded to the survey have an educational background that includes time spent at a college or university. The highest level of education completed by most IBM Certified Deployment Professional holders is either a bachelor’s degree (30.2 percent of those surveyed), master’s degree (50 percent), or doctorate (5 percent). The outliers are the 10 percent of respondents who completed some level of technical training after high school and the 4.8 percent who exited the realm of formal education after getting a high school diploma.

There’s a positive employment outlook for IBM Certified Deployment Professional holders: 74.1 percent of survey respondents are employed full-time, 14.8 percent have part-time jobs, 3.7 percent are currently enjoying some form of sabbatical, and 7.4 percent are currently unemployed. Among those with full-time jobs, most are at work either between 31 and 39 hours per week (34.8 percent of those surveyed) or for more than 50 hours per week (35.2 percent). The rest are either punching the clock for the standard 40 hours per week (10 percent of respondents) or between 41 and 50 hours per week (20 percent).

There's not a lot of freedom to work from home among IBM Certified Deployment Professional holders. Even in the post-COVID-19 world, 60 percent of those surveyed are spending most of those hours in a traditional workplace, working at home either 10 or fewer hours per week (30.3 percent) or between 10 and 20 hours (29.7 percent). After that, there’s a little bit of everything: 20 percent work between 21 and 30 hours per week from home, 10 percent work between 31 and 39 hours per week from home, 5.8 percent work 40 hours per week from home, and 4.2 percent work more than 40 hours per week from home.

In terms of workplace standing, the largest single group of IBM Certified Deployment Professional holders we heard from are employed at the executive level (26 percent of those surveyed). The rest, in descending order, are either senior specialists (22.2 percent of respondents), senior managers (also 18.5 percent), managers (11.1 percent), directors (7.6 percent), specialists (7.4 percent), or rank-and-file employees (7.2 percent).

A core 44.7 percent of the IBM Certified Deployment Professional holders who responded to the survey are IT novices, having worked in a role the directly utilizes their certified skills for between 3 and 5 years. The rest have been plying their certified skills for either between zero years (1 to 11 months) and 2 years (10.6 percent of respondents), between 6 and 8 years (23.4 percent), between 9 and 10 years (12.8 percent), or more than a decade (8.5 percent).

Finally, here’s the view of IBM Certified Deployment Professional 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: 18.5 percent
Several times a week: 59.3 percent
Several times a month: 14.8 percent
Occasionally: 7.4 percent
Rarely: [No responses]

Since becoming certified, I feel there is greater demand for my skills.
Strongly agree: 44.6 percent
Agree: 44.3 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 3.7 percent
Disagree: [No responses]
Strongly Disagree: 7.4 percent

Becoming certified has increased my problem-solving skills.
Strongly agree: 33.3 percent
Agree: 59.3 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: [No responses]
Disagree: [No responses]
Strongly Disagree: 7.4 percent

Becoming certified has increased my workplace productivity.
Strongly agree: 33.3 percent
Agree: 51.9 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 7.6 percent
Disagree: [No responses]
Strongly Disagree: 7.2 percent

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