Looking for a bigger paycheck? Try sharpening your SAP skills.

IT pros with non-certified skills in several SAP technologies saw pay increases of 20 percent or well above in the second quarter compared with the same period in 2007, according to the IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index released this week by consulting and research firm Foote Partners.

The SAP skills receiving the biggest pay bumps in the last 12 months include SAP Materials Management (57.1 percent), SAP Production Planning (50 percent), SAP Business Objects (25 percent), SAP Quality Management (25 percent), SAP Product Lifecycle Management (20 percent) and SAP Human Capital Management (20 percent). 

Filling out the top five in 12-month value growth are XML (50 percent), business intelligence (44.4 percent) and network security management (36.4 percent). 

In the past six months, SAP skills also have dominated pay growth, led by SAP Web Application Server (29 percent), SAP Production Planning (28.6 percent), SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (27.3 percent), SAP Business Objects (25 percent) and SAP Quality Management (25 percent).

But it’s not all good news for SAP pros. Two specific skills—SAP Payroll (25 percent) and SAP Mobile Infrastructure (20 percent)—were among the top five skills declining in pay over the last 12 months.

MySQL (-27.3 percent), Microsoft Exchange (-25 percent) and Sun Microsystems’s Jini network technology (-20 percent) also saw significant drops.

In certified IT skills, security pros saw two biggest increases in the second quarter over the same period last year. Global Information Assurance Certification Security Experts (36.4 percent) and Certified Information Security Managers (27.3 percent) led the charge, with IT Certified Architects (20 percent), Planet3 Certified Wireless Network Administrator (20 percent) and Teradata Certified SQL Specialists (16.7 percent) rounding out the top five.

An assortment of certified IT workers saw huge pay decreases in the last 12 months, though. IT pros with certifications in Microsoft Certified Professional+Internet (-40.0 percent), Prosoft CIW Associate (-33.3 percent), LAN Server Engineer (-33.3 percent), CompTIA Project+ (-28.6 percent) and Teradata Certified Implementation Specialist (-25.0 percent) saw the biggest drops.

Foote Partners surveys 80,000 American and Canadian IT pros for its quarterly index report. The data in this quarter’s report was collected between April 1 and July 1.

For more detailed data, see Foote Partners’ IT Compensation site. 

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