SAP LogoSAP skills are in demand, so where can you earn top dollar? Mostly in aerospace or defense, professional services, healthcare or financial services. You'll earn less if you opt for a career in the public sector, education, retail or communications. All this comes from a survey by SaaS provider Panaya. Not surprisingly, SAP partners, large customers or integrators with revenues below half a billion pay the highest wages. Professionals who work in North America earn 25 percent more than their European counterparts. Even newcomers with less than six years of experience earn median salaries of $76,375. Best of all, worldwide spending on all ERM applications was projected to reach $37.9 billion in 2011, with three segments achieving the highest growth: financial performance and strategy management, order management, and project and portfolio management. SAP, Oracle and Microsoft continued to be the only three ERM vendors with revenues of more than $1 billion in the first half of 2011. But 2012 could be the best year yet for IT professionals with knowledge of SAP HANA in-memory databases, as I mentioned in a recent blog post. U.S. sales for the HANA business suite recently topped $100 million, and SAP executives have predicted the in-memory database will be number 2 in the marketplace by 2015. All in all, 2012 look to be a good year for IT professionals with SAP skills.