Demand for IT skills down in first 3 months of 2009

A new study shows that demand for IT skills is down slightly in first three months of 2009.  Pay for both IT certifications and non-certified skills fell 0.5% overall during the first three months. Out of 371 skills and certifications considered in survey, 60 skills and certifications declined in value and 46 increased in value.

As per the survey by Foote Partners, LLC, demand for IT skills went down but depending on the specialization, pay is still rising for niche skills and certifications in IT Security, methodology/process, networking/systems, database, and enterprise apps. 

The survey has come up with the Hot List for IT Skills and Certifications. In IT Skills category(non-certified), JAVA EE, SE, ME were the hottest followed by Linux, Virtualization, and Microsoft .Net.  Business Process Management/Modeling/Improvement stood at #6, Security at #8(IDS/IPS, forensics, identity/access mgmt, compliance, firewalls, threat/vulnerability assessment and mgmt), Project Management at #10. Various SAP flavours are in the list ranked between #11 and #27 with MySQL(#22) and PHP(#23) in between.

Among IT Certifications Hot List, HP/Accredited Systems Engineer walked away with numero uno position. It was folllowed by GIAC Certified Incident Handler. Citrix Certified Integration Architect stood at #4.