Understanding Microsoft Azure certifications

[SandraMarin]

Updated March 20, 2023

The world of technology is rapidly changing. IT and development professionals and the organizations that are looking for people with digital and cloud skills must be ready to meet the challenges of the new economy. What’s required for today’s IT roles isn’t what was needed even just a few years ago. In fact, the average life of a skill is less than five years. To be successful these days, it’s important to keep growing your skill set, experience, and abilities. 

  

Azure certifications offer IT professionals an edge in this cloud-based and connected world. Job seekers and seasoned professionals alike can use Azure certifications to help advance their career—in their existing organization and role or in new ones—earn recognition, and validate their technical knowledge and abilities in current and future industry job roles. And organizations can use certifications to identify the talent they need and to build the technical skills of their workforce. 

Certification can help professionals stand out and organizations find talent 

Azure certifications are globally recognized and industry-endorsed. They’re used both by job seekers (individuals) and by talent seekers (organizations) as a way to validate that a candidate has the skills to do the job. They’re a powerful differentiator in the quest to match skilled talent to key jobs in the digital age—Azure skills are broadly available in the labor market; over 450K individuals hold an active advanced role-based Azure Certification worldwide. Our blog post Need another reason to earn a Microsoft Certification? has even more details. In the meantime, here’s a summary. 

Certifications are valuable for technical professionals: 

• They tell the world that you seek to learn and achieve competency in new technical skill areas. 
• They can boost confidence, efficiency, and productivity. You’re not just trained—you have earned a certification. 
• They can help make you more competitive—in-depth skills can have a strong influence on professional colleagues. 
• They can even lead to a boost in salary. 

Certifications are valuable for organizations: 

• For companies looking for technical professionals, certification simplifies talent identification and can streamline recruiting. 
• For those training their current talent, certifications can inspire the commitment among newly upskilled employees. 
• Teams with certifications have proven that they have essential skills for the job and can help make an organization’s workforce more productive and competitive. 

Whether you’re looking to level up your career or to jump-start a new one, you can use Azure certifications to validate your technical knowledge and abilities in the modern cloud environment. In these unsettling times, earning your Microsoft Certification can help provide you with the edge you need with organizations that are seeking skilled talent. Need inspiration? Find it in our video Microsoft Certifications for Azure.

 

Use your profession to find a certification

Azure certifications allow system administrators (IT pros), developers, and data and AI professionals to validate that they have the skills necessary to cover all aspects of digital transformation. These skills range from managing on-premises, hybrid, or cloud infrastructure, to innovating with best-in-class applications, to supporting those apps and infrastructure with data and analytics—all with the proper security considerations. For a high-level look at all of our certifications, organized by professional role, check out the blog post Finding the right Microsoft Azure certification for you. 

Target the right certification for your skills

In our portfolio, certifications are designed for specific skills. Some are best suited for individual job roles. Several of our certifications are a good fit for more than one technical audience or profession. How do you decide which one is the best for you? 

  

Sometimes a picture helps. We’ve put together Upskill with Azure certifications, an illustration that shows how the certifications intersect with core skills required for Azure. Choose your skills, and see which certifications align with them. Download the illustration, and use it to help decide which certifications best fit your skill set. 

Make the most of your career: Explore Microsoft Learn

Microsoft Learn enables you and your team to gain Azure skills at your own pace. Learning begins at your skill level and progresses quickly with practice in the platform. From the fundamentals to the most advanced, role-specific technical know-how, with a multitude of products to serve all kinds of learning styles, Microsoft Learn offers a connected, engaging learning experience where you can explore the resources you need, including: 

• Training. Microsoft Learn offers instructor-led training, with virtual or in-person courses, taught by Microsoft Certified Trainers from Microsoft Learning Partners worldwide. It also offers access to hundreds of free, interactive, self-paced learning paths—covering cloud computing, AI, business applications, and other topics. And discover other training opportunities, such as Microsoft Virtual Training Days and Cloud Games. 
• Documentation. Easily access all Microsoft technical documentation, including quick starts, how-to guides, and architectural guidance and frameworks created by our engineering teams.  
• Microsoft Learn Community. Whether you or your employees are looking to get the latest updates on Microsoft Learn news, connect with experts, or be a part of the conversation, the Microsoft Learn Community is the place to be! Anyone can join and connect with community leaders and thousands of other learners within our Microsoft Learn Community. 
• Q&A. Check out questions about Microsoft technologies—and get timely answers—in Microsoft Q&A, a global, community-driven platform.   
• Shows and Events. On Shows you can watch original video content from Microsoft technical experts and members of the community, and you can tune into technical Events live or on demand.  

Celebrate your Azure talents with the world 

When you earn a certification or learn a new skill, it’s an accomplishment worth celebrating with your network. It often takes less than a minute to update your LinkedIn profile and share your achievements, highlight your skills, and help boost your career potential. Here’s how:  

• If you’ve already earned a certification, follow the instructions in the congratulations email you received. Or find your badge on your Certification dashboard, and follow the instructions there to share it. (You’ll be transferred to the Acclaim website.) 
• To add specific skills, visit your LinkedIn profile and update the Skills and endorsements section. Tip: We recommend that you choose skills listed in the skills outline guide for your certification. 

It’s easy to renew your Microsoft Certification 

When your Azure certification expires, we’ve got good news. You can renew it and other current certifications by passing a free renewal assessment on Microsoft Learn—anytime within six months before the certification expires. Get the details in Is your certification expiring soon? Renew it for free today! 

Plus, a certification is now valid for one year from the date you earned it. This shift aligns with the rapid evolution of cloud technology and skills. Get more information in our blog post Stay current with in-demand skills through free certification renewals. 

It’s time to level up!

Passionate about exploring new technical areas? We are, too. Whether you’re just starting your cloud learning journey or you’re a seasoned pro who builds and deploys business-critical workloads on-premises, in hybrid environments, or in the cloud, we’re here to help you on your journey. Choose from a wide variety of certifications to help advance your career, gain recognition, and validate your technical knowledge and abilities. 

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