Does the increase awareness of the roll of procurement officers by major companies, meet with more demands for higher qualifications?

Yes for sure. As the role of Procurement Professionals is being recognized and refined, so is the demand for professional qualifications. There was a time some years back when Procurement was not considered more than a trivial service and it was assumed that a person with ordinary education can perform the tasks and as such no specialized education was demanded. However, with increased realization of value addition by the procurement function, the organizations prefer to hire persons having specialized formal education and training in the field.