9/7/2005 -- According to the 10th Annual Microsoft Certified Professional Salary Survey, published this week on MCPmag.com in conjuction with Redmond magazine, salaries for Microsoft Certified Professionals and those working in the Microsoft IT space are heading upward.

Readers of both pubications reported an average salary increase of 5.3 percent this year, as compared to a mere 0.3 percent average increase in 2004.

The average salary among readers of MCPmag.com and sister publication Redmond magazine for 2005 is $68,535. Note that experience plays heavily into average salary; for example, those with one to two years of experience report an average salary of $56,500, while those with more than 10 years report an average of $78,600. (Editor's Note: Both MCPmag.com and Redmond magazine are published by the same company as CertCities.com).

The salary survey also looks at the impact of various certifications and related skills on compensation. According to the survey, those holding an MCSE, for example, report an average salary of $67,000 if they work with portable/embedded computing, $72,100 if they work in hardware design and $77,100 if they work with Unix. The top earning skill for in 2005 is outsourcing, with an average salary of $84,139 for those supervising outsourced efforts.

For Microsoft-specific skills, readers report that the the top earnings area is Identity Integration Server ($93,333), followed by BizTalk Server ($90,441), Content Management Server ($85,385) and Windows Server 2003 Datacenter ($84,938).

The survey also offers average salaries by location and industry, all cross-referenced by Microsoft certification.

The survey results were obtained by polling 1,675 U.S.-based readers of MCPmag.com and Redmond magazine. The survey was conducted by Wilson Research, with a margin of error of 3 percent.

To read a truncated version of this salary survey online, go here. To download a PDF of the complete salary survey results, including all the charts referenced above plus many more, go here (free, but registration required). -Becky Nagel