Salary Survey Extra is a series of dispatches that give added insight into the findings of our annual Salary Survey. These posts contain previously unpublished Salary Survey data.

In ancient times, an oracle was a wise soothsayer who listened to people’s questions, consulted with the divine, and dispensed information, often in the form of prophetic prognostications. In 2018, most people’s first association with the term “oracle” is probably a vague idea about some computer company that put its name on the basketball arena where the NBA’s Golden State Warriors play their home games (at least until next season).

The signature product of Oracle Corporation is its database software and technology, which actually has some figurative common ground with the far-off roots of the word that gives the company its name. When a user queries an Oracle product, the software consults a vast database that is probably at least somewhat godlike in the amount of information it can contain, and returns an answer.

Oracle Certification manages a program that offers dozens upon dozens of credentials, so many that we defer to their wisdom with the Salary Survey and include titles that refer to entire classes of certification, as opposed to identifying a single credential. One such is Oracle Database Professional (No. 34 on this year Salary Survey 75 list). Thus, everyone who chimed in here is a certified Oracle Database Professional, but they individually specialize in a variety of database applications and technologies.

Here’s what the salary picture looks like for Oracle Database Professionals who responded to the Salary Survey:

All U.S. Respondents
Average Annual Salary: $123,410
Median Annual Salary: $122,530
How satisfied are you with your current salary?
Completely Satisfied: 9.1 percent
Very Satisfied: [No responses]
Satisfied: 72.7 percent
Not Very Satisfied: 18.2 percent
Not At All Satisfied: [No responses]

All Non-U.S. Respondents
Average Annual Salary: $59,400
Median Annual Salary: $45,100
How satisfied are you with your current salary?
Completely Satisfied: 11.1 percent
Very Satisfied: 11.8 percent
Satisfied: 35.3 percent
Not Very Satisfied: 29.4 percent
Not At All Satisfied: 12.4 percent

The largest single body of Oracle Database Professionals in the survey is made up of U.S. residents (52 percent of those surveyed). We also heard from certified individuals in five other countries: Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand, and Romania.

Most Oracle Database Professionals who responded to the survey are men, but there are more women in the group (10.9 percent of respondents) than you might expect. There’s no predominating age group, though the smallest numbers of responses came from either end of the age spectrum, with just 9.6 percent of those surveyed between the ages of 19 and 24, and only 4.5 percent between the ages of 65 and 74. Sandwiched in between are the 22.7 percent of respondents who are between the ages of 25 and 34, the 18.2 percent who are between the ages of 35 and 44, the 27.3 percent who are between the ages of 45 and 54, and the 17.7 percent who are between the ages of 55 and 64.

The highest level of formal education completed by most Oracle Database Professionals is either a master’s degree (54.5 percent of those surveyed) or bachelor’s degree (27.3 percent). A handful of respondents (4.5 percent) are currently in school, while the rest all claim some level of college training, with 9.6 percent having topped out at an associate’s (two-year) degree, 1.8 holding doctorates, and 2.3 percent who can lay claim to a professional degree such as a juris doctor.

Employment among Oracle Database Professionals is exceptional, with 95.6 percent of those surveyed employed full-time, versus just 4.4 percent who are unemployed. Among those with full-time jobs, most have either a standard 40-hour work week (33.3 percent of respondents) or are slightly overworked, putting in between 41 and 50 hours per week (47.7 percent). That leave 9 percent of respondents who work between 31 and 39 hours per week, and 10 percent who put in more than 50 hours per week.

In terms of workplace standing, Oracle Database Professionals tend to be either senior specialists (45.8 percent of those surveyed) or some level of senior staff, with 18.8 percent employed as managers, 12.3 percent as senior managers, 3.5 percent as directors, and 2.9 percent as executives. The remaining 16.7 percent all identified themselves as rank-and-file employees.

Almost all of the Oracle Database Professionals we heard from have a least a few years’ grounding in Oracle technology. While we did hear from a tiny group (4.2 percent of respondents) who have worked in a role that directly utilizes one or more of their certified skills for between zero years (1 to 11 months) and 2 years, most are much more Oracle-conversant: 16.7 percent have been in such a role for between 3 and 5 years, with the rest checking in either between 6 and 8 years (12.5 percent), between 9 and 10 years (8.3 percent), or at more than 10 years (58.4 percent).

Finally, here’s the view of Oracle Database Professionals on key questions from the survey about how certification impacts job performance:

At my current job I use skills learned or enhanced through certification:
Several times a day: 62.5 percent
Several times a week: 25 percent
Several times a month: 12.5 percent
Occasionally: [No responses]
Rarely: [No responses]

Since becoming certified, I feel there is greater demand for my skills.
Strongly agree: 29.2 percent
Agree: 50 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 16.6 percent
Disagree: 4.2 percent
Strongly Disagree: [No responses]

Becoming certified has increased my problem-solving skills.
Strongly agree: 25.5 percent
Agree: 41.2 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 20.8 percent
Disagree: 12.5 percent
Strongly Disagree: [No responses]

Becoming certified has increased my workplace productivity.
Strongly agree: 27.9 percent
Agree: 51.7 percent
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 17.1 percent
Disagree: 8.3 percent
Strongly Disagree: [No responses]