This article shows some statistics and facts about the numbers of Cisco CCIE certified professionals in the world and also how much money these professionals earn per year.

1. Number of CCIEs in the world – Starting
Salaries – Demand by Track
I have collected some statistics about the Cisco CCIE certification which is the top
spot you can get in the Cisco certification pyramid (of course there is also Cisco
Architect in Design track but that’s another story).
A lot of people are asking me about total number of CCIEs in the world, starting
salaries of CCIEs and also which CCIE track has the most demand in Job openings,
so I did some research and presenting you the results below.
Total number of CCIEs in the world:
This number is not officially published by Cisco but I have done some research
and also read some Cisco Live presentations where they leaked some numbers.
The latest official number of the total CCIEs in the world comes from a Cisco Live
presentation slide and the numbers are as following (Latest update of the numbers
below is March 2, 2013):
 Total number of CCIEs in the world (all tracks): 38,005
 Total of Routing & Switching CCIEs: 27,552
 Total of Security CCIEs: 4,264
 Total of Service Provider CCIEs: 3,142
 Total of Voice CCIEs: 2,341
 Total of Wireless CCIEs: 64
Also, the same presentation slide above shows the numbers of multiple CCIEs
(people who hold more than one CCIE cert) as shown below:
 Total of Routing & Switching + Security CCIE: 1026
 Total of Routing & Switching + Service Provider CCIE: 1053
 Total of Routing & Switching + Voice CCIE: 502
 Total of 3 or more CCIEs: 511
 Total of 4 or more CCIEs: 110
 Total of 5 or more CCIEs: 25
 Total of 7 CCIEs: 1

2. Average CCIE Starting Salaries:
Another important figure that interests people (maybe the most important one !!) is
the starting salary of CCIE professionals. After all, you don’t get the CCIE just for
fun right , you are expecting also a nice salary increase!!
Of course the salary of CCIE professionals depends a lot on which company they
work, in which country etc. The numbers below, based on my research (I got some
great info from bradreese.com), are for USA for Q1 of 2014:
 Wireless CCIE average starting salary (per year): $110,000
 Routing & Switching CCIE average starting salary (per year): $120,000
 Voice CCIE average starting salary (per year): $140,000
 Security CCIE average starting salary (per year): $165,000
 Data Center CCIE average starting salary (per year): $175,000
I hope the numbers above will inspire some of you to push harder for this
prestigious certification.
CCIE Demand by Track in Job openings:
From the total number of Job openings, the CCIE track with most demand is the
classic Routing & Switching CCIE track. See the percentages below for all tracks:
 Routing & Switching CCIE: 73% of all Job opportunities
 Voice CCIE : 21% of all Job opportunities
 Security CCIE : 4% of all Job opportunities
 Data Center CCIE : less than 1%
 Wireless CCIE : less than 1%