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Over 19,500 IT professionals answered a far-reaching range of questions about their salaries, continuing educational choices, current credentials, and their overall take on job satisfaction in the Tech Republic / Global Knowledge 2010 IT Skills and Salary Report. This powerful snapshot of the IT worlplace community includes:

• The average salary among IT professionals across the board was around $82K – barely up 1% over last year. This is a recession-driven departure from the previous year (2008 to 2009) trend, when average salaries rose by 10%.

• Having a 4-year degree is increasingly a ticket to ride in IT world. In 2008, 59% of respondents held a Bachelor's degree. In 2009, it was 69%. No reason to expect this trend won’t continue.

• Off shoring will continue to claim US-based jobs, but in specific areas: infrastructure, help desk, and data centers. Conversely, jobs in strategy, architecture, project management, and relationship management are significantly more shielded from the off shore trend.

• Feeling that one has a "fair" salary remains the top variable associated with job satisfaction, but other things matter too. In order of importance among the IT crowd, issues include respect for the work performed, opportunities to increase skills, a solid benefits package, work life balance, and job security.

• Training / continuing education matters. All other things equal, annual salaries are $3 - $9K higher among those respondents who took IT training last year. Top certification draws include PMP, CCNA, MCP, MCSE, and ITIL v3. Average salary for those with PMP certification was over $100K, placing folks with this credential in the top 20% of salaries in the industry.

• More money brings more responsibility. Managers who supervise others, manage budgets, and / or have staffing responsibilities earn 23% - 36% more than those who don’t.

• Bigger companies / departments pay more. Members of IT departments of 10 associates or less earn $72K. As the department size grows, so do the dollars, up to a top end of $95K for departments of 250 or more.

• According to this group, IT job opportunities will increase in cloud computing, data security, and network administration, Attention and jobs will decrease in wireless networking, storage, unified communications, and telecommunications.

For those in a job search, seeking a raise, contemplating a career move, or just generally reconsidering their relationship with a current employer, this kind of solid marketplace information can really inform good decision-making. For more, check out the full survey.