A new report from tech jobs database Dice.com contains a breakdown of the industry's most valuable skills.
According to Dice's data, there are dozens of programming and data skills that will net you, on average, over $100,000, and some that routinely clear $110,000. Most of these skills are also quite specialized, Dice President Shravan Goli says, which helps boost their value.
The top-earning skill is R, a programming language most commonly used by statisticians and data miners. Of the more than 17,236 technology professionals Dice surveyed, those with that skill reported an average salary of $115,531.
We've compiled a ranking of the 10 top-paying tech skills below. If you're looking to make a career investment, these could be a good place to start:
1. R
What it is: A programming language widely used among statisticians and data miners
Average salary people with it earn: $115,531
2. NoSQL
What it is: A collection of database and data storage technologies
Average salary people with it earn: $114,796
3. MapReduce
What it is: A programming model used to process and generate large data sets
Average salary people with it earn: $114,396
4. PMBok
What it is: A standardized guide to project management
Average salary people with it earn: $112,382
5. Cassandra
What it is: An open source distributed data management system
Average salary people with it earn: $112,382
6. Omnigraffle
What it is: An application used to create diagrams, charts, illustrations, and other graphics
Average salary people with it earn: $111,039
7. Pig
What it is: A data analysis tool
Average salary people with it earn: $109,561
8. Service Oriented Architecture
What it is: A software design that helps computers cooperate over a network
Average salary people with it earn: $108,997
9. Hadoop
What it is: An open-source software for storage and data processing
Average salary people with it earn: $108,669
10. Mongo DB
What it is: An open-source document database
Average salary people with it earn: $107,825
