Top 15 Microsoft Azure certifications to expedite your IT career

With companies increasingly moving their data to cloud, there’s an extensive need for more professionals with sound understanding and expertise of cloud technology.

Microsoft’s cloud offering, Azure, ranks among the top in the industry. Enterprises find Azure’s hybrid feature appealing, as well as the wide range of tools offered on the platform. Based on data from Statista released in February this year, the Azure market share has been on a steady upsurge and now accounts for 20% of the worldwide cloud market, making earning an Azure certification a strong career move.

Costs of certification exams depend on the country or region in which it’s taken, as well as applicable taxes, but here are 15 role-based Azure certifications that’ll give you an in-depth understanding of the skills and knowledge required to elevate your IT career using Microsoft’s cloud.

Top Microsoft Azure certifications

• Azure for SAP Workloads Specialty
• Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty
• Azure Fundamentals
• Azure Data Fundamentals
• Azure AI Fundamentals
• Azure Cosmos DB Developer Specialty
• Azure Administrator Associate
• Azure AI Engineer Associate
• Azure Database Administrator Associate
• Azure Data Engineer Associate
• Azure Data Scientist Associate
• Azure Developer Associate
• Azure Network Engineer Associate
• Azure Security Engineer Associate
• Azure Solutions Architect Expert

Azure for SAP Workloads Specialty

A candidate for this certification should already be an architect or engineer who designs and manages the SAP landscape on Azure, with responsibilities including implementing industry-specific standards for migrations and integrations, and ensuring the sustained operation of an SAP solution within the Azure environment. You should also have extensive experience and knowledge of SAP applications and databases — including HANA, SAP Business Suite, and SAP NetWeaver — as well as experience with virtualization, cloud infrastructure, storage structures, high availability, backup, disaster recovery, data protection, and networking. It’s highly recommended candidates have an Azure Administrator Associate certification as well.

Job role: Solution Architect

Required exam: Planning and Deploying SAP on Azure

Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty

For this certification, you should already be a server or desktop administrator with subject matter expertise in designing, implementing, managing, and maintaining Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop experiences and remote apps for any device. In addition, you ideally work closely with Azure administrators and architects, Microsoft 365 and Azure Stack HCI administrators, and Azure security engineers. Experience with Azure technologies is also needed, including compute, networking, identity, storage, and resiliency, as well as knowledge of managing end-user desktop environments like delivering applications and configuring user settings.

Job role: Administrator

Required exam: Configuring and Operating Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop

Azure Fundamentals

Candidates for this certification, a starting point in a journey toward a career in Azure, should be able to demonstrate foundational knowledge of cloud concepts, particularly with Microsoft Azure, and describe Azure architectural components and Azure services like compute, networking, and storage. Candidates should also have broader IT skills and experience working with infrastructure and database management, and software development. Those pursuing this certification may be eligible for ACE college credit once you pass the exam. See ACE college credit for certification exams for details.

Job role: Administrator

Required exam: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals

Azure Data Fundamentals

This certification, for those beginning to work with data in the cloud, is an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge of core data concepts and related Microsoft Azure data services. As a candidate, you should have familiarity with Exam DP-900’s self-paced or instructor-led learning material, as well as concepts of relational and non-relational data, and different types of data workloads such as transactional or analytical. Eligibility for ACE college credit is available once you pass this certification. See ACE college credit for certification exams for further details.

Job role: Data Engineer

Required exam: Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals

Azure AI Fundamentals

This certification is an opportunity for those with both technical and non-technical backgrounds to demonstrate knowledge of machine learning and AI concepts, in addition to related Microsoft Azure services. As a candidate, you should be familiar with the self-paced or instructor-led learning material. Data science and software engineering experience aren’t required but it’s beneficial to know of basic cloud concepts and client-server applications. You can use Azure AI Fundamentals to prepare for other Azure role-based certifications like Azure Data Scientist Associate or Azure AI Engineer Associate, but it’s not a prerequisite. See ACE college credit for certification exams for further details regarding eligibility.

Job role: AI Engineer

Required exam: Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals

Azure Cosmos DB Developer Specialty

For this certification, you should have subject matter expertise designing, implementing, and monitoring cloud-native applications that store and manage data. Also required is thorough knowledge and experience with developing apps for Azure, working with Azure Cosmos DB database technologies, and creating server-side objects with JavaScript. Responsibilities include designing and implementing data models and data distribution, loading data into an Azure Cosmos DB database, and optimizing and maintaining the solution. In this role, you integrate the solution with other Azure services, and design, implement, and monitor solutions that consider security, availability, resilience, and performance requirements. You should also be proficient at developing applications that use the Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL API.

Job role: Developer

Required exam: Designing and Implementing Cloud-Native Applications Using Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Azure Administrator Associate

The certification is designed for professionals with expertise in implementing, managing, and monitoring identity, storage, governance, compute, and virtual networks in a cloud environment. This role often operates as a part of a bigger team devoted to implement an organization’s cloud infrastructure. To earn this certification, you should have a minimum of six months of hands-on experience managing Azure. You’ll also require a good understanding of core Azure services, Azure workloads, security, and governance. It’ll also test your skills of deploying and managing Azure compute resources and your ability to configure, monitor, and maintain Azure resources.

Job role: Administrator

Required exam: Microsoft Azure Administrator

Azure AI Engineer Associate

This certification validates your ability to develop AI solutions in collaboration with data engineers, data scientists, AI developers, and IoT specialists. To earn this certification, you need to have a strong understanding of C# or Python, and should have hands-on knowledge of REST-based APIs and SDKs to develop conversational AI solutions, natural language processing, computer vision, and knowledge mining on Azure. You should also be proficient enough to apply responsible AI principles and be able to plan and mange Azure Cognitive Services solution.

Job role: AI engineer

Required exam: Designing and Implementing a Microsoft Azure AI Solution

Azure Database Administrator Associate

This certification demonstrates your ability to implement and manage the operational side of hybrid data platforms and cloud-native solutions developed with SQL Server and Azure data services. This exam verifies your proficiency in using varied methods and tools to execute regular operations, including knowhow of using T-SQL for administrative management purposes. The skillsets the exam measures include the ability to plan and implement data platform resources; implement a secure environment; examine, configure, and improve database resources; configure and manage task automation; and plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment.

Job role: Database administrator

Required exam: Administering Microsoft Azure SQL Solutions

Azure Data Engineer Associate

This certification is a stamp of your expertise in integrating, consolidating, and transforming the data that pours in from numerous structured and unstructured data systems, and in providing structure to build analytics solutions on that data. An Azure data engineer ensures data pipelines and data stores are well-functioning, effective, structured, and reliable based on business requirements and limitations. You also need to navigate unexpected issues and reduce data loss. To earn this certification, you need in-depth knowledge of data processing languages, including Scala, SQL, or Python, and understand parallel processing and data architecture patterns. You should also be able to design, implement, and optimize data storage, data processing, and data security.

Job role: Data engineer

Required exam: Data Engineering on Microsoft Azure

Azure Data Scientist Associate

This certification focuses on your expertise in leveraging data science and machine learning to implement and run machine learning workloads on Azure. Candidates for this role should be able to conduct data experiments, train predictive models, and manage Azure resources for machine learning.

Job role: Data scientist

Required exam: Designing and Implementing a Data Science Solution on Azure

Azure Developer Associate

The Azure Developer Associate certification is designed for professionals with one to two years of professional experience with Azure. It validates that a candidate is a cloud developer who takes part in all stages of development, deployment, and maintenance, and that the candidate works with cloud database administrators and clients to implement solutions. The skills measured in the exam include the ability to develop Azure compute solutions; develop for Azure storage; implement Azure security; monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Azure solutions; and connect to and use Azure services and third-party services.

Job role: Developer

Required exam: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure

Azure Network Engineer Associate

This certification validates your prowess to deploy networking solutions by using the Azure portal and other methods such as PowerShell, Azure Command-Line Interface, and Azure Resources Manager templates. It also demonstrates your aptitude to work with solution architects, security engineers, cloud administrators, and DevOps engineers to deliver Azure solutions. The exam measures thorough expertise in planning, implementing, and maintaining Azure networking solutions comprising connectivity, routing, hybrid networking, security, and private access to Azure services.

Job role: Network engineer

Required exam: Designing and Implementing Microsoft Azure Networking Solutions

Azure Security Engineer Associate

This certification focuses on your expertise in implementing Azure Security Controls that secure identity, access, data, applications, and networks in cloud and hybrid environments. It proves your ability to execute responsibilities such as managing the security posture of the organization, responding to security incident escalation, conducting threat modeling, identifying and neutralizing detected flaws, and implementing threat protection. To earn this certification, you need moderate to robust knowledge of most Azure offerings and an understanding of basic IT security principals. This exam tests your knowledge in four different subject areas: managing identity and access; implementing platform protection; managing security operations; and securing data and application.

Job role: Security engineer

Required exam: Microsoft Azure Security Technologies

Azure Solutions Architect Expert

The certification validates your subject matter expertise in designing cloud and hybrid solutions on Azure, including network, compute, monitoring, storage, and security. It requires advanced experience and deep knowledge of IT operations comprising networking, governance, disaster recovery, data platforms, virtualization, business continuity, identity, and security. To earn it, you must have Azure Administrator Associate certification (see above), which tests your skills to implement, monitor, and manage an organization’s Microsoft Azure environment.

Job role: Solution architect

Required exam: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions