Entry-Level IT Certifications Ranked
We rank 12 entry-level IT certifications by salary, difficulty, and time-to-hire. Real 2025 data on CompTIA, AWS, Azure, Google, and Cisco beginner credentials.
The exact change
1) "Most hiring managers we surveyed expect one solid foundational certification before considering a candidate for an interview. Two stacked certifications such as CompTIA A+ plus AWS Cloud Practitioner roughly doubles interview callback rates in our sampled data compared to one certification alone." 2) "For every dollar spent on the exam, holders in our dataset earned roughly $720 in their first-year salary above the non-certified help desk baseline. No other certification on this list approaches that ratio." 3) Network+ exam fee listed as $369 in 3 places (rank table, detail section, ROI table).
1) "Most hiring managers expect at least one solid foundational certification before considering a candidate for an interview. Stacking two complementary certifications, such as CompTIA A+ plus AWS Cloud Practitioner, tends to meaningfully improve interview callback rates compared to holding one certification alone." 2) "Relative to its low exam cost, holders tend to see a strong first-year salary lift above the non-certified help desk baseline, giving this certification one of the best cost-to-salary ratios on this list." 3) Network+ fee updated to ~$399 with a pointer to check CompTIA's current pricing, in all 3 places; passing score (720/900) verified accurate and left unchanged.
Suggested change
Softened 2 fabricated-precision proprietary-data claims to qualitative statements and corrected 1 stale exam-fee figure while verifying the passing score as accurate.
Why this is better
Softened 2 unverified-precision proprietary-data claims (a hiring-manager callback-rate survey with no verifiable methodology, and a $720-per-dollar ROI ratio with no verifiable dataset) to qualitative statements. Corrected a stale Network+ exam fee ($369, now approximately $399 per current CompTIA pricing) in all 3 locations it appeared, while verifying and leaving unchanged the accurate 720/900 passing score.
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