CompTIA, the provider of vendor-neutral skills certifications and education for technology workers, has expanded its credentialing program into the data skills arena with the introduction of CompTIA Data+.

CompTIA Data+ is a data analytics certification for professionals tasked with developing and promoting data-driven business decision-making. It validates the ability to mine, analyze and interpret data in a clear, consistent way that produces insightful observations about the business.

For employers, CompTIA Data+ can help them solve a problem common in many organizations – the inability to translate data into good decision making. Just one in four companies report being exactly where they want to be with their utilization of data, with the majority recognizing a need for improvement, according to a January 2022 CompTIA survey of 500 businesses on their data management and analysis practices and challenges.

“A company’s ability to use data to better inform its decision making is often hampered because data responsibilities are disbursed across many departments and teams, each with disparate skill levels and job responsibilities,” said Tom Reilly, CompTIA’s chief product officer.

“CompTIA Data+ can help organizations better define data job roles, train their people in the most current skills and recruit and retain the best talent.”

Anyone working in a role that analyzes business-specific data, provides management with data analytics on business functions, or analyzes and monitors dashboards, results and trends can benefit from becoming CompTIA Data+ certified. Its value extends well beyond the IT team to employees in finance, marketing, manufacturing, operations, sales and other departments tasked with data responsibilities.

The drive toward making greater use of data in decision making impacts both external initiatives and internal operations. In the CompTIA survey 60% of companies said they have increased their focus on data to understand customers better, and 53% are doing so to improve day-to-day operations.

“It is incredibly hard for a data professional to express the amount of knowledge they have to work with data, including reporting, querying, and visualizing data,” said Robin E. Hunt, co-founder of ThinkData Solutions, Inc., a technology firm specializing in all services around data and business intelligence tools and a CompTIA authorized training partner.

“To do so often leaves out all the important details and CompTIA Data+ sets a benchmark and gives us all something to discuss.”

For individuals currently in a job role with data duties, or those ready to join the workforce, CompTIA Data+ training and certification will help them better understand how to organize, mine and analyze data. Mastery of these concepts through learning and validation through certification demonstrates to current and future employers that they have the knowledge and ability to interpret insights from data and communicate those insights in a way that helps the organization.

Accompanying the release of the new exam is the availability of a comprehensive selection of related CompTIA CertMaster learning and exam preparation resources, including:

• CertMaster Learn for Data+, a comprehensive, interactive and self-paced eLearning solution.
• CompTIA Labs for Data+, hands-on lab simulations to build knowledge and skills.
• CertMaster Practice for Data+, an adaptive online companion tool that assesses knowledge and exam readiness.
• Study guides for Data+ for those who prefer traditional textbook style learning.

CompTIA Data+ is the first of four planned data-related certifications that CompTIA intends to develop. Future certifications will focus on data science (CompTIA DataSci+), systems (CompTIA DataSys+) and foundational knowledge (CompTIA Data Foundations).

Complete details on CompTIA Data+ are available at https://www.comptia.org/certifications/data.