I got asked the question, "How do you see the job market valuing ITIL certifications today - particularly Foundation vs higher-level?"
That got me thinking, and I had many thoughts, so I wanted to get them all down "on paper".
When we talk about ITIL certifications today, the first thing we have to acknowledge is that the job market has changed.
Twenty years ago, only cutting-edge teams were adding ITIL certifications to their job requirements, as they understood it was a competitive differentiator.
Ten years ago, ITIL Foundation was often a checkbox. It signaled that someone understood incident, change, problem - the basics. It was credibility currency.
Today, Foundation still matters - but it plays a different role.
Foundation demonstrates literacy.
It tells an employer:
- You understand value.
- You understand service relationships.
- You understand structured operating models.
- You speak the language.
In a market flooded with automation, AI tools, and platform specialization, that shared language is actually becoming more important, not less.
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“Who shot J.R.?” was the cliffhanger from the TV show Dallas that carried an entire nation through the summer of 1980.
Everyone from 9 to 90 was talking about it.
It was shared cultural language.
Today, in our curated digital bubbles, very little cuts across generations. And when it does, it’s often tragic news. The more segmented our information streams become, the less shared language we have.
That’s one of the understated strengths of ITIL. When professionals are trained in it, regardless of generation or background, they start from a common ground.
They share definitions, principles, and operating assumptions.
In a fragmented world, that shared foundation is more powerful than it looks.
Common ground is powerful. What you build from it is what differentiates you.
Foundation gets you in the conversation.
Advanced certifications shape the trajectory of that conversation.
The job market increasingly differentiates between operational familiarity and strategic capability.
Higher-level designations signal:
- You can align services to enterprise outcomes.
- You understand governance, risk, and experience.
- You can design value streams - not just participate in them.
- You can lead transformation, not just execute tickets.
And employers are rewarding that distinction.
We’re seeing stronger value in roles like:
- Service Owners
- Product Managers in IT organizations
- IT Operations Leaders
- Experience and XLA practitioners
- Governance and Risk leaders
- Enterprise and Solution Architects
- Transformation program leads
Foundation supports credibility across the board - especially for early-career professionals, service desk analysts, business analysts, project managers, and those transitioning into IT.
But higher-level certifications increasingly correlate with leadership readiness.
Now, with ITIL (Version 5) emerging, professionals are asking the right question:
Do I need to upgrade?
My answer:
If your goal is employability, Foundation remains very valuable.
If your goal is influence, design authority, or transformational leadership, upgrading becomes strategic.
ITIL (Version 5) is not just a rebrand. It deepens emphasis on:
- Product and service integration
- Experience management
- Organizational change
- AI-enabled operating models
- Governance in complex ecosystems
So professionals should think less in terms of "Do I replace what I have?", and more in terms of:
“What can I learn to stay not just current, but indispensable? What will propel my career over the next 5 years?”
Because certifications are not just credentials. They are positioning signals.
Which leads to the certification pathways themselves.
If you look at the new pathways, what you’ll notice immediately is clarity of intent.
The structure now more explicitly separates:
- Foundational literacy
- Operational leadership
- Strategic leadership
- Practice-level depth
- Enterprise-level mastery
The progression feels less like collecting courses and more like building capability layers.
Foundation establishes common ground.
The next levels develop either:
- Advanced operational leadership and product/service capability, or
- Strategic leadership and governance orientation
The Practice Manager track strengthens deep execution capability.
The Strategic Leader track sharpens enterprise thinking.
And the Managing Professional designation reflects integrated capability across product, service, and experience domains.
What’s different in the new pathways is the explicit recognition that service management is no longer just an IT function - it is an enterprise design discipline.
And that’s aligned with how organizations are hiring.
They are not just looking for ITIL-certified. They’re looking for people who can connect operations to business value.
So the takeaway for professionals is this:
Foundation is still relevant.
Advanced levels are increasingly differentiating.
ITIL (Version 5) represents alignment with the operating realities of AI, digital ecosystems, and value-stream thinking.
In a competitive job market, alignment matters! A certification alone won’t transform your career - but it can significantly accelerate how quickly you’re given scope, influence, and responsibility.
And when credentials both educate and inspire, that acceleration becomes meaningful advancement in practice.
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