CCNA Salary 2025-2026: Pay by Role, Experience & Metro

CCNA salary figures swing widely because “CCNA” is not a job title — it is an associate-level Cisco credential (exam 200-301) that moves you off the help desk into network roles that pay more. This guide breaks down what CCNA-certified professionals actually earn across the US in 2025–2026: by role, by years of experience, by metro, and by the skills you stack on top. Every figure comes from public salary data — ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, and Payscale (2025) plus the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, May 2024) — and is reported as a range, because real offers vary by employer, industry, and city.

How much does a CCNA-certified professional earn in the US?

Aggregators disagree on the “average CCNA salary” largely because they define the search term differently. A broad “CCNA” query pulls in help-desk and junior roles and lands lower; a “networking CCNA” or “network engineer” query pulls in experienced staff and lands higher. Here is how the major sources line up for 2025–2026.

Read together, a general CCNA holder in the US averages about $80,000–$106,000, with most pay between roughly $60,000 and $144,000. In hourly terms, that spans about $26 an hour for entry technicians to $52–$59 an hour for experienced networking staff (ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, 2025). Payscale and similar aggregators cluster lower (near $78,000–$82,000) because their samples skew toward newer certificate holders. Ranges beat point estimates here: because samples, titles, and regions differ, any single “average” is less useful than the 25th-to-75th-percentile band each source reports.

What is the Cisco CCNA salary by role?

The CCNA maps to a cluster of related network jobs. Pay climbs as your work shifts from monitoring and support toward configuration, design, and troubleshooting. These are typical US figures for 2025–2026.

Entry technicians and NOC staff anchor the bottom of the range. A network support or help-desk technician averages about $55,400, and an entry Tier-1 NOC technician about $55,000, with both roles commonly paying $40,000–$67,000 (ZipRecruiter, 2025). NOC roles often run 24/7 shifts, so night and weekend differentials can add several thousand dollars to the base.

Network administrators and engineers hold the middle and upper-middle. The BLS groups them under “network and computer systems administrators,” with a median wage of $96,800, a 10th percentile near $60,320, and a 90th percentile above $150,320 (BLS, May 2024). On Glassdoor, network engineers specifically average about $123,500, with a typical $98,350–$156,444 spread. Administrators keep existing networks running — patching, monitoring, access, and uptime — while engineers design and build them, which is why engineer pay sits a tier above administrator pay in most markets. The $130,390 figure sometimes quoted for engineers is actually the BLS wage for computer network architects, a senior design role rather than an entry target.

How does CCNA salary change with experience?

Experience moves the number more than any other single factor. A CCNA plus three years of production work pays far more than a fresh CCNA with none — the credential opens the door, but time on real networks sets the wage.

The mid-level jump is the steepest: moving from entry to 3–5 years of experience often lifts pay 30–40% (Glassdoor, Payscale, 2025). Senior pay generally assumes a deeper stack — a CCNP, cloud networking, or Python automation layered on the CCNA can each add roughly 10–20%. A common trajectory: start as a NOC or support technician near $55,000, reach network administrator or engineer pay around $90,000–$100,000 by year four, then cross $120,000 as a senior engineer once a CCNP and automation skills are in place.

Which US metros pay CCNA professionals the most?

Geography can swing the same candidate’s pay by 40–50%. High-cost tech hubs — dense with corporate headquarters, data centers, and cloud providers — pay well above national medians. State and city averages from 2025 data:

• California — about $86,227 statewide; San Jose near $98,602 on the Silicon Valley premium.
• New Jersey — about $84,734, lifted by data-center and financial-services demand.
• New York — about $83,108, though a high cost of living offsets the headline number.
• Coastal tech hubs — add roughly $15,000–$25,000 over a comparable non-coastal metro for the same mid-career engineer.

US-based CCNA holders earn the most of any country, and the domestic spread is wide enough that relocation — or a remote role paid on a national band — can matter as much as a promotion. Remote network jobs increasingly price on national rates rather than local cost of living, which lifts pay for CCNA holders in lower-cost states, though hands-on data-center and campus roles still require on-site presence.

Is the CCNA worth it for the salary in 2026?

Demand backs the numbers. CyberSeek lists well over 200,000 open networking-related roles, and the CCNA is the certification employers request most for them. Cisco’s roughly 41% share of enterprise networking — about four times its nearest competitor — means most of those employers run Cisco equipment, so a Cisco-specific credential maps directly to the jobs being posted. The “network and computer systems administrators” category grows slowly, with about 14,300 openings a year through 2034, mostly from turnover (BLS, May 2024) — but networking is not shrinking as a skill; it is consolidating into cloud, security, and automation work that still starts from CCNA fundamentals. For an IT-support worker or career-changer, the CCNA is the shortest credible route onto the network payscale.

How do CCNA salaries compare with CCNP and CCIE?

The CCNA is the entry rung of a three-tier Cisco ladder, and pay rises at each step. A CCNA typically supports roles paying $55,000–$100,000; adding a CCNP (professional level) aligns with senior engineer and design work at $100,000–$160,000+; the expert-level CCIE regularly clears $150,000 (Glassdoor, Payscale, 2025). Employers rarely pay for the letters themselves — they pay for the scope of network you can be trusted to design, secure, and automate. Most professionals earn the CCNA first, work two to three years, then stack a CCNP when targeting senior roles.

Do the CCNA (200-301) and its jobs pay more than general IT?

Directly, the certificate does not attach a fixed raise. Its payoff is access: the CCNA is the entry credential employers most often list for network roles, and it moves you out of general help-desk pay into the network track above. The gap between a general IT-support wage and a network-track wage is usually the clearest return the CCNA produces — often $10,000–$25,000 across the first two roles. Positions the CCNA (200-301) commonly unlocks:

• Network support / help-desk technician (Tier 1–2)
• NOC technician or analyst
• Network administrator
• Junior or associate network engineer
• Network-heavy systems administrator

Land any of these, add two to three years of hands-on time, and the salary tables above start working in your favor. CCNA jobs pay for what you can configure and fix — the credential gets you into the room.

How do you earn your CCNA with Boost eLearning?

The 200-301 exam covers network fundamentals, IP connectivity, security fundamentals, and automation — and Cisco tests hands-on configuration, not memorized theory. Boost eLearning teaches the CCNA with Live Labs on real Cisco gear, so you practice switching, routing, and troubleshooting the way the exam and the job demand. Courses run online self-paced, live virtual, or on-site, led by Certified Partner instructors, and every enrollment carries a money-back Pass Guarantee. Map your path from certificate to a higher-paying network role with the Cisco CCNA (200-301) course.

Treat every number here as a negotiation benchmark, not a quote. The CCNA sets the floor by opening the network track; your role, experience, metro, and cert stack set the ceiling.