Infographic: 2012 Salary and Skills report

Considering that TR is read all over the world and you refer to "Global Knowledge IT Salary and Skills" one would assume that this is global. Alas, this report means nothing to the rest of the world.

Global Knowledge IT Salary and Skills: Vaughn, you have incorrectly read the title of the report. "Tech Republic and Global Knowledge " = two entities that prepared the report on IT Salary and Skills. Global Knowledge is a Business and IT training company. The report does not refer to salaries and skills on a global scale. http://www.globalknowledge.com/

I am glad you raised this point. Even today in this world of inter connectivity via the web, the cheap international travel, interdependence on trade of oil and cheap Chinese goods, it seems Americans often forget that there is "the rest of the world." Fourteen years ago I transferred from the Boston to London office, and even in the same company Europe was treated almost as an afterthought. Sorry for the negativity because it is an interesting article, but sometimes living over here I am embarrassed to be an American. Lets think globally. It would have been far more interesting to get the global picture of what IT salaries were doing. It would tell the whole story.

General motivation for off-shoring labour is the salaries in other parts of the world... which would justify a really global survey, where gross and net compensation could be questioned, and e.g. like the " Big Mac Index "* could be compared.

*The Big Mac Index is an informal index which relates the average time to work for a general Hamburger in a FastFood-store and is used to compare cost of living around the world.

At first it seemed to the point, but the graphics left no doubt. It's useless to people living outside of "America" and the dollar zone.
The same for the E.U. would be nice, as there are more IT professionnals and more overall people than in the U.S.A.

The average experience of those responding caused me to raise an eyebrow. Looking around my office, we've got about 4 out of 35 IT folks that have been in IT for over 12 years. With the survey's experience level, it looks like they are getting a heavy number of senior managers, directors and C-level folks responding, but not many people "in the trenches." Because of the sample bias it would be unwise to use this as an example of average salaries.

Keep in mind the only certifications on the list are ones that Global Knowledge has courses for. This infographic is primarily an advertisement. The message is if you get one of these certs (which they just happen to sell courses for) you too can make the big bucks.

Yet another caveat: people don't always answer truthfully on surveys.

bls.gov (Bureau of Labor Statistics) gives tax-accurate information, and you can dig down to just your occupational area in your metro area. You can't dig into exact job titles, though.