I wanted to get fresh numbers on certified accessibility professionals from International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) for 2023, just to check if there is any progress comparing to 2022 situation of certified accessibility professionals that I wrote about. Some progress is evident, but numbers are not only rising.
Certification isn’t a direct indication of people working professionally with accessibility, but it is in a way more formal dedication and I know personally about folks that are true veterans and don’t want to be certified, so these numbers aren’t showing the absolute truth. They are still interesting to me, just to follow the trends and check how much people are officially interested in accessibility on country level
Unfortunately official IAAP certified professionals directory (opens in new window) doesn’t include country or search by it besides people names due to privacy driven decisions, so I reached out to IAAP and they were so kind to send me the data. This time a bit different format as in 2022, but I will not bother them again as data still serves my comparison.
Short explanation of abbreviations:
- ADS = Accessible Document Specialist
- CPACC = Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies
- WAS = Web Accessibility Specialist
Certified digital accessibility professionals by European Union’s country
| Country | ADS | CPACC | WAS |
| Austria | 7 | 3 | |
| Belgium | 1 | 5 | 3 |
| Bulgaria | 1 | 4 | |
| Czech Republic | 3 | 3 | |
| Denmark | 3 | 1 | |
| Finland | 20 | 25 | |
| France | 1 | 7 | 3 |
| Germany | 4 | 69 | 27 |
| Greece | 1 | 1 | |
| Hungary | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Ireland | 3 | 13 | 5 |
| Italy | 4 | 2 | |
| Lithuania | 1 | ||
| Netherlands | 17 | 8 | |
| Poland | 4 | 3 | |
| Portugal | 3 | ||
| Romania | 1 | ||
| Slovenia | 1 | ||
| Spain | 14 | 6 | |
| Sweden | 4 | 95 | 45 |
I must say that I am very impressed by numbers in Germany and Sweden. I am quite familiar with Swedish situation due to my private and professional connections there but such improvement in Germany is a total surprise. Seems like their German-speaking chapter called DACH (stands for international country names “Deutchland” (for Germany), “Austria” and “Confoederatio Helvetica” (latin for Swiss Confederation)) is doing an amazing work. Seems like more should follow and establish more localized chapters like IAAP Nordic (in Swedish, opens in new window) and IAAP DACH (in German, opens in new window) did.
I am happy to report that I will soon get some company when Slovenia will get some CPACC and WAS and maybe also ADS certified people. It is almost three years from my WAS certification and as I mentioned in my farewell to 2022 I joined Slovenian accessibility institute as a “professional head of the institute” and am happy to inform that accessibility professionals there will also pursuit certifications soon.
We need more people publicly dedicated to accessibility and I am certain that getting an international certificate helps a bit. It is not the only indication, but it can be a bit assuring especially for people that are not working with accessibility for decades.
