Inflated salaries for CCNA/CCNP?

Question

I've read online that starting salaries for CCNA are 35-55k/yr and for CCNP an average of 61k/yr. However, after talking to several people who are actually in the field, I've heard that with no experience, right out of college, you can expect perhaps 30-35k/yr for a CCNA and 40-45k/yr for a CCNP. Pretty significant disparity. Anyone know anyone who actually got a higher-paying job with his degree with only his schooling behind him?

Answer 1

It's going to depend somewhat on where you are in the country, like cities in the east versus midwest versus west coast. Location alone could account for a 10K difference in entry level salary for example. It may also depend on what the college degree is backing up the Cisco certification. In this field, an engineering degree would pay higher than a computer science degree which would pay higher than an information systems degree, at least generally speaking. This could account for another 5-10K difference in entry level salary.

So I could see both ends of the spectrum you described, if you have a 4-year electrical engineering degree and a CCNP in New York City or San Jose you might be worth 61K/year. For a 2-year associates degree in computer information systems and a CCNA in a small remote city, maybe that's worth 10 to 20K less for those employers. Of course you need to factor in the cost of living, etc.

Anyway, your numbers from your other contacts sound right on average, 30-35K for CCNA level and 40-45K for CCNP level with no other experience in the field.

The CCIE certification is another story. This is the Black Belt certification for anything related to networking, and a CCIE cert in some cases could make the sky the limit but almost certainly over 80-85K. In some cases the CCIE is a bigger deal than a graduate degree, which happened in my case, and pissed me off because I spent 2.5 years on my Masters in Computer Science, when the CCIE would have actually helped my career faster if I did that first. So my advice there is if you're working in the networking field and want a graduate degree, consider going for your CCIE first.

The 2 people I do know who came right out of college with a CCNP cert did manage to get a small bump in their starting salary, but it was closer to 5K.

Answer 2

Average Ccna Salary

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Inflated salaries for CCNA/CCNP?
I've read online that starting salaries for CCNA are 35-55k/yr and for CCNP an average of 61k/yr. However, after talking to several people who are actually in the field, I've heard that with no experience, right out of college, you can expect perhaps 30-35k/yr for a CCNA and 40-45k/yr for a...

Answer 4

Ccnp Average Salary