The Compensation Benefit of ITIL® Skills and Certifications

Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) is a quality management approach for managing IT services that meet business needs. The most broadly accepted ITSM framework is ITIL® (Mann, 2012) and its adoption by organizations across the globe has grown over the past decade. A study conducted by Forrester and itSMF (2013) found that IT service providers that employ ITIL® enjoy better service quality and higher operational productivity as well as cost savings. Therefore, IT professionals with ITIL® knowledge and skills are likely valuable to organizations and earn a higher wage than their peers. This paper investigates whether or not there are salary benefits for IT professionals that possess ITIL® knowledge and skill and what are the estimated benefits, if any. Using a human capital model and employing data from an on-line survey of a large set of IT professionals (16,632 responses) conducted at the end of 2013 this benefit is confirmed and quantified.