Methodology

The comparison tries to answer one specific question: which certification gets you closer to a job, and for how much money. Here is where each number comes from and what its limits are.

Where the data comes from

• Price: the public price of the exam (or of the course + exam bundle when it is not sold separately), in US dollars, checked by hand. It changes often and discounts are common: treat it as a guide.
• Study hours: an estimated range based on experiences shared by the community, for someone with the background each certification expects. Add time if you are starting from scratch.
• Real difficulty: an editorial 1 to 5 rating of how hard it is to pass, not of what the syllabus claims.
• Job ads: how many published job ads mention the certification in each country, according to the Adzuna job search API. It is checked once a week and the history is kept.
• Average salary: the average of those ads' salaries, only for ads that publish one, in local currency, gross per year.

The return index

It is a 0 to 100 score that sums up three factors. Each one is normalised from 0 to 1 against the best certification in that country:

1. D, demand (45%): number of job ads, on a logarithmic scale, so that one certification with huge numbers does not crush the rest.
2. S, salary (30%): average salary of the ads. If no salaries are published, it counts as the median of the others.
3. C, cost (25%): price + study hours × USD 10 per hour. The cheapest one scores 1 and the rest score proportionally.

100 × (0,45 × D + 0,30 × S + 0,25 × C)

The index is calculated separately for each country, because demand for each certification varies a lot from one market to another.

What the index does not tell you

• A job ad that asks for a certification does not guarantee you will be hired for having it: experience and your own projects still matter more.
• Management certifications (CISSP, CISM) look very well paid because they require years of experience: the salary belongs to the role, not the certification.
• Some acronyms also appear in ads that only list them as "nice to have", and very new certifications take time to show up in job ads.

Affiliate links

Some links to platforms and certifications may be affiliate links. If you buy through them, the site receives a commission at no extra cost to you. Affiliates never affect the table order or the index.