CertMag Reveals List of 50 Hot Certs for 2016
As people in the business of researching trends and compiling various forecasts often say — maybe not in these exact words, but you'll recognize the gist — if it were actually possible to predict the future, then we could all go to Las Vegas (or Wall Street) together and be millionaires. Yes, concrete foreknowledge of future events is only a real thing in epic fantasy and movies about time travel.
On the other hand, suppose that you only wanted to know or guess events in the very near future. And suppose that you decided to predict what Person A will do in the next several months by saying, in essence, "Hey, Person A. What are you going to do in the next several months?" It's not for certain, of course, that Person A will follow through, or will even provide accurate information in the first place.
It's certainly a more foolproof method, however, than some. And that, more or less, is how Certification Magazine compiled its recently published list of the "top" certifications for 2016. At the end of 2015, via its annual Salary Survey, the Certification Magazine team put the question to more than 11,700 IT professionals: Which IT certification(s) are you planning to pursue in 2016?
At the top of the list is a hot new credential from cybersecurity consortium (ISC)2, the organization that curates the popular and widely held Cerified Information Security Systems Professional (CISSP) cert. In partnership with Cloud Security Alliance, (ISC)2 began offering the new Certified Cloud Security Professional credential last year.
The new certification combines the red-hot IT disciplines of cloud computing and cybersecurity. Cloud computing is rolling through the enterprise business world like a thunderclap, and cybersecurity continues to be on everyone's radar as a top concern of corporations, governments, institutions and individuals. So it's no surprise that there's a ready market for CCSP.
Along those same lines, interest in EC-Council's popular Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) certification is also strong. CEH is the No. 2 credential on the Certification Magazine list, which ranks the most frequently named "this is what's next for me" certs in order from 1 to 50. Actually, it's a clean sweep of the first three slots for cybersecurity, with ISACA's Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) credential coming in at No. 3.
Rounding out the Top Five are two credentials from customer relationship management (CRM) and business process management (BPM) provider Pegasystems, a software development firm based in Cambridge, Mass. Pegasystems Certified Lead System Architect is No. 4, and Pegasystems Certified Senior System Architect is No. 5.
The complete list of popular certifications for 2016 is available at CertMag.com.
GoCertify's mission is to help both students and working professionals get IT certifications. GoCertify was founded in 1998 by Anne Martinez.
