Security Is A Certification Gold Mine

Nowhere is the certification craze more pronounced than in cybersecurity, which accounts for five of the 18 certifications most worth having, according to Cary, N.C.-based business training and certification company Global Knowledge.

An additional four certifications Global Knowledge said it's worth having touch upon networking or virtualization, with competencies spanning the gamut from Cisco routers and switches to Citrix's virtualized environments to VMware's virtual infrastructure.

Nearly half of Global Knowledge survey respondents said they train specifically to prepare for certification, up from just 9 percent a decade ago. And 88 percent of professionals in the fields of network infrastructure and data center are today certified, according to Global Knowledge.

Here are 18 valuable certifications based on Global Knowledge site searches, feedback from instructors and survey response data.