CCNP Salary: An Incentive to Get Certified!

Cisco Certifications are a hot commodity these days, especially if you are looking to up your salary and skill set.  However, as with any professional certification, you will need to devote time, money, and a lot of your brain power into readying yourself to pass your certification exam.  If you are thinking about becoming a Cisco Certified Network Professional, also known as a CCNP, or are already certified and looking for a job in the field, we are going to give you a bit more incentive to act faster.  How?  Well, let’s just go over the salary for a Cisco Certified Network Professional — because we have a feeling that that will be incentive enough.  Before you start counting quarters, let’s get started!

What is a CCNP?

First, what does a Cisco Certified Network Professional encompass?  By obtaining a CCNP certification, it shows that you have expertise in fields such as: planning, setting up, maintaining, and troubleshooting networks that are run with and rely on Cisco products.  Once you become certified, you can specialize in different fields pertaining to the Cisco network, such as: security, voice, wireless, or video implementations.

Cisco Certified Network Professional Salary

A CCNP’s salary will depend on a few factors, such as: job type, experience, hiring industry, and size of the company.  Let’s take a look at each of these factors individually.

Job Type:  As a Cisco Certified Network Professional, there are various types of jobs your certification can allow you to work in.  Network engineers and information technology managers are two examples.  Network engineers can expect to earn anywhere from $56,400 to $80,400 annually.  However, once they advance to a senior level, their salary will look to reach upwards from $75,000 to $99,460.  Information technology managers, on the other hand, have the title of “manager” under their name to promote their salary level.  They can expect to earn from $65,200 to $96,000 each year.

Experience:  With your certification, you will already know a lot more than most.  However, experience still plays a part in determining your salary.  As your work more in the field, your knowledge and understanding of Cisco’s computers and networks will increase along with your salary.  If you are just starting out in the field as a CCNP, you can expect to earn around $41,271 per year.  However, once you start racking up your years, at up to 4 years of experience, you can look to increase your salary to around $72,700 annually.  At up at 10 to 19 years of experience, your salary can increase upwards to around $87,700 per year.  And, once you hit your 20 years of service as a CCNP, expect to get a nice raise to around $94,400.

Industry:  The industry that a CCNP works in also impacts their salary outcome.  Depending on the importance of the industry, the salary tends to go higher.  For example, Certified Cisco Network Professionals who work for the healthy industry earn the highest salaries of CCNP employees, making about $82,240 per year.  The second highest paying industry in the CCNP market deals with financial services.  CCNP workers often deal with millions of dollars, and can rack in roughly $80,770 each year.  To get an idea of what CCNP professionals make who contract themselves to companies, they tend to be on the lower end at around $76,600 annually.

Company Size:  The size of a company can also impact a CCNP’s yearly salary.  As you might have guessed, the greater the size of a company, the higher a CCNP’s salary will be.  However, there are two exceptions.  Here is a breakdown: firms with 1 to 9 employees pay around $71,740 per year.  Companies employing 10 to 49 individuals experience a salary dip down to $69,370 each year.  In organizations with 600 to close to 2000 employees, yearly earnings will be higher at 79,598 per year.  CCNPs work at companies with 2,000 to 5,000 can see a salary of $86,448 annually.  And lastly, the final exception comes with companies of more than 5,000 employees, who will earn a salary of around $85,448 each year.

How to Become a CCNP

If this salary information looks appealing to you, as well as the prospect of working with Cisco Networking Systems, let’s fill you in on the process of becoming a Certified Cisco Networking Professional.

To start, you will need to accumulate the following skill sets.  Cisco Certified Network Professionals are expected to know how to:

• Properly configure and implement an EIGRP based solution.
• Organize and create a multi-area OSPF Network and configure an OSPF routing.
• Apply an eBGP based solution and configure eBGP routing.
• Set up an IPv6 based solution.  Be able to document the implementation results.
• Carry through and configure an IPv4 or IPv6 redistribution solution.
• Organize a Layer 3 Path Control Solutions and broadband connections.
• Implement and determine the necessary resources for a VLAN based solution.
• Plan and carry through a Security Extension of Layer 2 solutions.
• Design and configure services for a Switch based Layer 3.
• Apply advanced VoIP, video, and wireless support solutions.
• Organize and confirm High Availability using show and debug commands.
• Maintain and control the network and develop a plan to be able to monitor the performance.
• Troubleshoot Multi Protocol systems, including: EIGRP, NAT and OSPF.

You will need to utilize these skills and fundamentals in order to pass the three Cisco Certified Network Professional Exams that are required of you.  They are as follows:

• Cisco Certification Exam 642-902: “ROUTE”
• Cisco Certification Exam 642-813: “SWITCH”
• Cisco Certification Exam 642-832: “TSHOOT”

Get on the CCNP Route!

There you have it: the necessity steps to obtaining a Cisco Certified Network Professional certification, as well as the salary outcome that you can look forward to expecting!  If you need any further help preparing or brushing up on your CCNP skills, head on over to Udemy.com for some helpful and convenient online courses to help you navigate towards your desired earnings!