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IT Brew

Tom McKay

itbrew.com

IT talent gap? Try skipping the code

The worldwide market for tools that allow low-code application development is projected to grow by $2 billion this year.

Certification

Billy Hurley

Online education platform Udacity on Oct. 15 

 an accredited Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence program that the company estimates will cost students less than $5,000. The offering is one of a botload of AI education options these days: boot camps, certifications, and multi-year on-campus programs.

University pros and industry analysts shared with IT Brew some 2025 AI upskilling opportunities that stood out to them. For IT pros who want to quickly upskill in AI, these are some options.

Why should IT pros consider learning some nifty AI skills? Two words: job opportunities. A July 28 report from job-recruiting site 

 found that AI jobs, despite constituting “a small portion of all job postings,” increased 53% YOY in 2025. Those jobs whose postings referred to “AI” offered base salaries of around $121,000, according to the study, “compared to $64k for all non-AI roles.”

IT pros should realize their peers are rapidly learning AI skills, potentially putting them in a better position for future opportunities. A study from 

, released in April, found that the number of candidates planning to earn an AI certification increased from 17% in 2022 to 35% in 2024.

Udacity’s program requires students to complete seven “nanodegree” programs, including 

. The program also calls for 750 additional hours of study in electives like 

Degrees are awarded by higher-ed institution Woolf, which lets qualified organizations join as new member colleges and offer accredited degrees. While most of the learning is “self-paced,” according to Udacity’s VP of Consumer Jared Molton, and can be done on one’s own schedule, he said mentors are available to provide feedback in office hours and live sessions. Udacity estimates the program will take 2,250 study hours, or roughly 18 to 24 months, to complete.

 found that “more than three-quarters of AI job openings give preference to candidates with a Master’s degree.”

 recently ranked Master of Science in AI programs, which listed Carnegie Mellon, Duke, and Northwestern in its top three spots. The average total tuition for those options, according to TechGuide, was $64,154.

Molton said his team discovered that 28% of Udacity’s graduates reported starting a new academic program after obtaining a nanodegree. “That was kind of an ‘a-ha’ moment for us. We were like, ‘Hey, we know our learners are doing this. How do we set them up even better for that opportunity?’”

Though businesses in 2024 appeared to prefer Master’s degrees, market-intelligence firm Gartner recently recommended that organizations prioritize candidates with certifications that close skills gaps in valuable, business-impacting areas like AI, cybersecurity, and cloud. “More employers are dropping degree requirements, recognizing that IT certifications provide a faster, more objective validation of workforce readiness, especially in critical areas like AI, cloud, and cybersecurity,” according to Gartner’s published guidance in August 2025.

Gartner highlighted these “prominent” certifications in its recent report:

Artificial Intelligence Graduate Certificate

IBM Applied AI [Developer] Professional Certificate (

 and Advanced Certifications from Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia, which Gartner’s recommendations said focus on “real-world integration of AI into cloud, data engineering, and edge computing environments.”

’s Certified Artificial Intelligence Scientist and Artificial Intelligence Engineer Certification (

DeepLearning.AI’s Deep Learning Specialization (

There are numerous education options for AI, but a clear standard for the emerging technology has not yet emerged.

“You don’t necessarily have to have a four-year degree to get an entry-level tech job,” Kirk Smallwood, VP of key accounts and industry engagement at CompTIA, 

Udacity announces low-cost Master of Science in AI

 As IT practitioners seek upskilling, we explore today’s AI training options.

Eoin Higgins

 in the job market, and that includes tech—but the AI data subsector is still booming, necessitating a workforce with certifications and education.

Luckily for novice tech workers looking to get on board the AI data train, the federal government recently 

 of an education savings plan to allow anyone to spend tax-advantaged dollars on a broad swath of tech training and certifications in all kinds of disciplines, from AI to cybersecurity to networking.

The 529 savings plan has been around for decades, with students able to place post-tax dollars in an investment fund then draw that money tax-free for qualified educational expenses. As part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Congress passed in early July, families and students can now use their 529 money to pay for non-degree training and credentialing, including tech upskilling.

For certification and training organizations like CompTIA, it’s been a long time coming. Seth Robinson, the group’s VP of industry research, told IT Brew that a larger breadth of choice for fund usage is helpful—and that employers should embrace these alternative avenues to training.

“They provide a lot of benefits,” Robinson said. “And there are some trade-offs, some pros and cons to either approach.”

Of primary concern is how the regulatory framework shakes out, and whether or not the rule-making process actually delivers. But overall the potential of the new 529 regulations likely outweighs the difficult regulatory complications.

“If somebody was considering a technology career and they had 529 funds available to use, and were wondering where to get started, we would encourage them to start with some kind of learning,” Robinson said.

There are more options than just certifications. Martha Heller, CEO of recruiting firm Heller, told IT Brew that, in her view, the real difference-makers in the new tech economy are going to be the people who have the ability to grab a new trend and take advantage of it. That makes the winner of the AI job market the person behind change management, Heller said.

“The skill set is, ‘I’m going to come in, I know this process like the back of my hand,’” Heller said. “And as such, I can rethink how we can do this process using AI to be efficient, and I can get all the people around me to start thinking that way too.”

Given the demand for employees skilled in change management, AI, and other disciplines for tech professions, many prospective hires are skipping the four-year degrees in favor of certifications and training—a process that 529s can make more economical than before. Meanwhile, companies should take this opportunity to engage in “skills-based hiring,” looking in non-traditional corners to meet their talent needs.

“What I would say to companies thinking about this whole degree thing is, go look in your manufacturing plants work for the person who’s grown up on the shop floor, and he or she knows everything about that, but has also been known for thinking of out of the box and raising their hands for things—get them to tell you how their world changes with AI,” Heller said. “That’s the person you want to be focused on, not the data scientist or the or the tech programmer.”

Update 9/26/2025: A reference to Tech+ certification in a quote has been corrected.

The expanded 529 plan is one option for IT pros looking to get ahead

Now that 529 plans can pay for more training and certifications, IT pros can quickly upskill.

Just because you’re teaching online doesn’t mean you can’t go around the room with an IT icebreaker.

Theo Khayat, an instructor at Campus, a two-year online college, began his first Spreadsheets & Databases class by asking his 60-plus students how they used—you guessed it—spreadsheets and databases. One student deployed digital ledgers for their real estate business, Khayat said; another used them for their anime club.

“Organizing information is at the heart of what information technology is trying to do,” Khayat, who also teaches at Northwestern University, told us.

Those basics are part of a new Campus program: the Associate of Science in IT program, which covers topics like cloud architecture, networking, cybersecurity, and applied AI. Its creators say it offers an advantage compared to other degrees: cost.

 reported that Campus raised $46 million from an array of investors:Sam Altman, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Figma chief Dylan Field, Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, Discord co-founder Jason Citron, Notion Labs co-founder Akshay Kothari, Bloomberg Beta, and basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal. To date, Campus has raised $101 million.)

Tuition at Campus is capped at $7,320 per academic year—an amount nearly matching the $ 7,395 maximum Pell Grant award, which provides financial aid for students in need. Campus, founded in 2016, also offers associate degrees in business administration and paralegal studies.

According to data analysis site Community College Review, the 2025 average public community college tuition is approximately $5,099 per year for in-state students and $8,776 for out-of-state students. (For private community colleges, average yearly tuition is approximately $15,581 per year.)

 academic year, average tuition for full-time undergrads in four-year programs reached $11,610 for public in-state schools; $30,780 for public out-of-state schools; and $43,350 for private nonprofit schools.

“There’s a lot of people who aren’t inspired by what they do. Maybe you’re 22, you’re working at the mall, you’re folding t-shirts, you’re folding burritos, and it’s like, ‘Wait, is there more for me out there?’ My goal is that people who think that, or who don’t want to get themselves in that situation, have a place where they can learn useful things from the best people in the world without going into debt,” Tade Oyerinde, chancellor and founder of Campus, told us.

, overall employment in computer and IT occupations is projected to grow “much faster than the average for all occupations from 2023 to 2033.” About 356,700 openings are projected each year, on average, due to employment growth and the need to replace workers who leave the occupations permanently.

The AS of IT, which launched July 10, offers 14 courses, including instruction on server management, Linux and command-line foundations, and GitHub workflows.

Campus’s educational model uses live online instruction taught by a distributed network of professors like Khayat; other professors in the program also teach at schools including Columbia and UC Davis.

The Campus IT program also includes preparation for industry certifications like CompTIA A+ Core 1, AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, and LPI Linux Essentials—a major benefit, according to Oyerinde.

“I think students get really excited knowing that, ‘Hey, employers recognize not just a degree, but these specific certifications that mean I have specific skills that are useful on day one,’” he said.

A CompTIA study of 462 US community college students found that 81% of respondents said industry-recognized certs required or recommended in academic programs “provide a stepping stone to career advancement over time.” (Only 24% of respondents, however, report that colleges require industry-recognized certifications.)

“Make no mistake: After a two-year degree and some of these certs, you don’t necessarily have to have a four-year degree to get an entry-level tech job,” Kirk Smallwood, VP of key accounts and industry engagement, at CompTIA told us.

Oyerinde sees graduating Campus students becoming entrepreneurs, continuing on to a four-year program, or starting right in on a job.

And it’s not out of the question for institutions to hire their IT undergrads. IT Brew reported this year how university CISOs have turned to students to operate their 

“In my tenure with the security team that dates back to 2012, we have hired more than 10 of our student workers as full-time employees,” Matthew Williams, deputy CISO and executive director of information security at the University of Cincinnati, shared with IT Brew in March 2025.

Tyler Laidler, who was working at a machine shop before Covid-19, pivoted to IT just a few years ago. He graduated in late 2023 with an associate science in IT from Sacramento-based MTI College—a school that Campus acquired in 2022. The new Campus curriculum mirrors MTI’s IT program, Laidler said.

Laidler, who was no stranger to taking apart computers, found the cloud design classes, including the Amazon specialty instruction, to be the most “practically applicable.”

Following a work-study IT program as a student, Laidler is now IT lead for the Sacramento facility at Campus. He helps to make sure file and server resources are properly administered and allocated, and that all staff is onboarded.

“The curriculum that I went through was largely focused on AWS, but the same principles apply for the Google Cloud environment,” he told us.

Campus itself builds a lot of software so instructors can crank out their Week 1 discussions.

We could literally hire students today who graduate from this program,” Oyerinde said.

Campus.edu offers new IT degree (and certification prep)

“Everyone should be able to learn useful things in this country without having to go into debt,” the school’s chancellor told us. 

It pays to be a certified Google Cloud architect, according to Skillsoft’s annual survey of high-paying IT credentials. Just Bing it, it’s true!

, Google’s “Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect” badge gave its holders on average a salary of $190,204. The median pay is a slight decrease from last year’s average salary of $200,960.

Google Cloud has been gaining momentum, according to Greg Fuller, VP of Codeacademy Enterprise at Skillsoft, especially as companies seek to diversify cloud infrastructures to avoid a single point of failure.

“Everyone’s looking for that multi-cloud approach, multi-cloud mindset. And Google Cloud is sitting there, but as that alternative that a lot of organizations are moving to, just for redundancy,” Fuller told IT Brew.

While Google still lags behind Microsoft and Amazon in cloud infrastructure market share, according to a Q1 report from 

, a summer earnings call from Alphabet revealed that Google Cloud’s Q2 revenue reached $10.3 billion—an increase from $8.03 billion one year ago.

A Google Cloud Certified Practitioner exam costs $200, and pros must recertify after two years. A popular cross certification in 2024, according to Skillsoft’s list, included AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner.

The Professional Cloud Architect certification tests candidates’ abilities to manage implementations of cloud infrastructure and design for security and compliance, according to 

John Pettit, CTO at Google partner Promevo, sees the cloud architect badge as a “general practice degree” for designing and configuring infrastructure. “It goes deep on setting up infrastructure, compute, networking, firewalls, and things like that, and it touches lightly on everything else,” he said, referring to fields covered in specialized Google certifications like security and data engineering.

Pettit and his team recently helped a consultancy looking to synthesize meeting notes and transcriptions into helpful summaries for briefing documents.

“Since we had a broader awareness of what you could do with different Google technologies, we’re able to kind of re-architect the solution a little bit, and bring some new technologies to their team that they weren’t aware of,” Pettit said, noting those “new technologies” included Vertex AI, Gemini, and Document AI.

“We know the right tools we can bring to the right problems. And that’s what the exam is really focused on.”

Skillsoft conducted its study from May to September 2024.


Google Cloud Architect certification still highly valued in 2024

And highly paid, according to Skillsoft’s annual report.

Do IT workers really need diplomas—or should CIOs and other hiring managers be focusing on finding alternate markers of skill?

While there’s a clear trend toward ditching degrees, it’s not happening overnight.

 tech leaders and found support for skills-based hiring, but also acknowledgment that college degrees are likely to be signifiers of learning, communication, and critical thinking skills. Veritas Technologies CIO Jane Zhu told the magazine degrees indicate “basic technical knowledge, problem-solving skills, the ability to collaborate with others, and ownership and accountability.”

Meanwhile, degrees themselves are no guarantee. The New York Times 

 just half of City University of New York computer science graduates had a job in their field a year out, with a 

 identifying lack of access to internships as a major barrier to rectifying racial disparities in NYC tech employment.

 applicants skilled through alternative routes missed out on 7.4 million jobs from 2000 to 2020 through “degree discrimination.”

The tech industry is, by and large, still asking for diplomas.

Opportunity@Work found that while some IT roles usually don’t require bachelor’s degrees—computer support stands at 45%—others are much more restrictive. For example, 76% of computer programming, 88% of computer scientists, network analysts, and web devs, and 94% of CIS manager jobs come with diploma mandates, despite the organization finding around one-fifth to one-fourth of those actually employed in those roles having alternative qualifications.

 from Burning Glass Institute, 46% of middle-skill and 31% of high-skill occupations underwent “degree resets” between 2017 and 2019, with 63% of those resets being “structural,” or “representing a measured and potentially permanent shift in hiring practices.” While it found that a sampling of big tech firms still listed degree requirements for IT roles above the national average, the percentage of listings with those requirements fell at all of those companies except IBM and Intel from 2017 to 2021.

Seth Robinson, VP of industry research at nonprofit IT certification provider CompTIA, told IT Brew that with competition for personnel high, organizations have had to become more resourceful in seeking IT talent.

CompTIA research has shown tech unemployment is 

 the national average and the sector will continue 

“The biggest factor is just the supply-and-demand imbalance that's out there,” Robinson told IT Brew. “Employers are looking for a lot of technical help. They're trying to get people started on technical journeys.”

Technology services provider Accenture, which the Burning Glass Institute report listed as requiring degrees for just 26% of software QA engineer jobs and 40% of software developer postings, started an 

 in 2016. Accenture North America CEO Jimmy Etheredge told IT Brew it has since hired over 2,000 of those apprentices, and an “overwhelming majority” become long-term employees. Forty-five percent of its entry-level roles don’t have degree requirements.

Etheredge said the program helps Accenture avoid a widespread problem in tech hiring—desire for experience in skills that are 

“Today, skills are the new currency, at any level,” Etheredge wrote via email. “The skills required to drive business results are dynamic and rapidly changing due to new and accelerating technologies.”

Amanda Day, director of people enablement at HR tech provider Remote, told IT Brew the company—which itself has a 100% remote workforce—has definitely seen an increase in the number of clients asking for “equivalent” experience as an alternative to four-year degrees.

“These days, I see that more traditionally corporate companies tend to be most likely to require a degree, while younger, more fast-moving and globally-minded startups are more focused on relevant experience,” Day wrote via email. “I think we’re seeing more startups follow this approach as they hire for tech roles, because they are experiencing that university education is not the only way to prepare for the working world.

Correction 07/19/23: The name of Veritas Technologies CIO is Jane Zhu, not Jay. We apologize for the error.


Black graduation cap, a diploma, white ladder, a small book on a table, depicts an attempt for students to achieve the goal or gain success in higher education.

Should IT roles ditch degree requirements? It’s complicated

Degree requirements are the norm for many IT roles, though it’s changing.

Whether you’re just getting started in the IT field or an established pro, certifications are probably part of your career.

But unlike a particular fruit-based movie review website, not everyone is so bullish on getting freshly certified. Andrea Simmons, a data consultant with her own practice in England, told IT Brew that certification glut is “a huge cost to an individual and/or a company if they’re actually kind enough to pay for your certifications.” Specialization in security is important, she said, but it’s not the only thing that matters, especially in a changing cybersecurity landscape.

To Simmons, a fixation on IT certifications can lead to dilution of focus. She pointed to the evolving nature of AI, and threat actors deploying the technology in hacks. IT teams need to be quick on their feet when responding to adversaries—not overly focused on extraneous certifications.

“We are rarely one step ahead of the criminal because they’re better funded and better resourced,” Simmons said. “It would be interesting to do a mapping of how well certified are the criminals as opposed to those of us who are not.”

 James Stanger, chief technology evangelist at CompTIA, told IT Brew that certifications in the IT space are numerous for a reason—there are a lot of moving parts in the industry, and specialized certifications are necessary for employers and employees alike to remain up on trends (CompTIA offers a number of IT certifications and courses).

“The real purpose of certification or any sort of education program is to reflect what’s going on in the industry in a practical way,” Stanger said. “In other words, it has to be based on specific job roles.”

 When it comes to personal cost—some certifications can be upwards of $1,000—Stanger sees the investment in certifications as a relatively good deal, especially compared to a college degree. More certifications are good for the market, he told IT Brew. If there’s only one organization with the information, they can use that monopoly of information to upcharge.

“Remember, they sell not just to individuals looking to get jobs, but they sell to industry, people in manufacturing…government…public sector, private sector, and they have to be very competitive with their costs,” Stanger said. “I would argue that a good certification actually does a good job in keeping costs down.”

 Over and over, Simmons said, teams are told they need to focus on integrating systems and ensuring there’s good security hygiene. But with an overemphasis on training, that focus can be lost, leading to team mismanagement.

“All we keep doing is making more and more specialists, and more and more people you need to engage with,” Simmons said. “It can bloat your project teams. So, I’m not sure that’s a plus either.”

And things change with time. Seasoned pros will have a different relationship to certifications and less of a need to keep current, Simmons said. The truth is that over time, seniority fills in the gaps.

“You don’t have to maintain these forever, because invariably, if you’re doing them early in your career, then it’s to give you that leg-up or open that door,” Simmons said. “Whereas when you’re late in your career, your experience is what should be speaking for you, and therefore the certifications become less relevant over time.”

Two views on IT certification market saturation

Dilution of focus is a pitfall but costs are low, experts say.

Mozilla and Microsoft have removed root certificate authority (CA) TrustCor from their respective Firefox and Edge browsers, under a cloud of suspicion over its reported ties to spyware firms and intel agencies. Both browsers will no longer accept new TrustCor certificates, the 

Root CAs are entities that authenticate keys that browsers and operating systems use to verify connections to legitimate websites. The vetting process for a root CA to be in major web browsers is expensive and lengthy, because root CA status comes with the potential for abuse, like surveillance and traffic hijacking. Firefox’s approval process, for example, takes at least two years, according to the Washington Post.

 a number of concerning insights into TrustCor, including shared officers with a Panamanian spyware firm called Measurement Systems, which distributed an app software development kit (SDK) that 

 on users. Measurement Systems is itself an affiliate of Packet Forensics, a firm that has 

 on its ability to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks (that 

 subverting a certificate authority). A beta version of a secure messaging program developed by TrustCor, MsgSafe.io, contained that SDK, and security researchers told the Post it wasn’t actually encrypted as advertised.

One TrustCor partner was listed as a contact for yet another firm that managed 

 for the Pentagon; another source told the paper that Packet Forensics technology was used to catch terrorism suspects. Adding to the list of suspicious factors, the Post found that the firm’s mailing address was a UPS Store mail drop in Toronto, while TrustCor’s website listed its leadership as a man who died months ago, and another whose LinkedIn indicated he left the company in 2019.

While no reports have indicated TrustCor abused its root CA status, in a mailing list for browser security experts, Mozilla’s Kathleen Wilson 

 that it was “unacceptable for a CA to be closely tied, through ownership and operation, to a company engaged in the distribution of malware.” TrustCor’s Rachel McPherson appeared to reply to the thread, writing that while the firm is “incredibly disappointed with this decision, we are not going to waste anyone’s time with a response to the removal right now.”

A representative from TrustCor, VP of operations Rachel McPherson, responded to IT Brew’s request for comment by pointing to a 

, which dismissed the allegations as “rumour and innuendo.” The December 2 updated response insisted that “there has been no evidence or speculation that TrustCor has ever mis-issued any certificates or mishandled any key material.”

Other major browsers include TrustCor as a root CA, including Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome. In a statement, Google spokesperson Ed Fernandez told IT Brew the company would be “providing an update on the trust status of TrustCor shortly.” Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An close-up of a computer screen showing a cursor and the symbols for lock and home.