Catapult your career and gain advancement opportunities by becoming Microsoft Azure certified
With the introduction of new technologies on a daily basis, cloud computing is one of the modern technologies that is growing fast. According to Oracle’s Cloud Predictions, “80% of all enterprise (and mission-critical) workloads will move to the cloud by 2025”. The basic feature that cloud computing offers is to share and store data in the cloud that can be accessed from anywhere in the world using a decent internet connection.
Now that people are more focused on the usage of cloud services, they are enjoying the features of cloud computing such as storing, sharing, and accessing their data from everywhere on the planet. The main reason behind the rapid adoption of cloud technology is due to the cost-effectiveness and ease of access.
Cloud computing is one of the bigger industries that generate billions of dollars in revenue every year with hundreds and thousands of job opportunities. Many big names are offering unique cloud services to many customers all over the world, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, Rackspace, and Microsoft Azure — with 29% application workload of the overall cloud market.
To pursue a career in cloud computing, all major cloud services providers offer career paths and certifications, but Microsoft Azure is a single cloud service provider that offers role-based certifications that are specifically designed according to the market requirements and the job roles. Due to the large adoption of Microsoft Azure cloud services, Microsoft Azure certified professionals are in high demand for developing cloud applications and managing cloud infrastructures.
In this article, we’ll discuss the top 10 reasons to become a Microsoft Azure certified professional. Whether you’re just getting started with your career or you’re a seasoned Microsoft professional, Cloud Academy offers Certification Learning Paths from the fundamentals to advanced.
1. Career flexibility
Microsoft Azure certifications are very important when pursuing a career in cloud computing, and it offers flexible career options. Microsoft Azure certifications help secure credible roles such as cloud administrator, developer, security engineer, AI engineer, data engineer, solutions architect, and DevOps engineer. Microsoft Azure offers nine role-based certifications that not only increase your versatility in the role you are in, but also in the industry you are working in.
There are a number of benefits associated with using cloud computing, and most businesses are shifting their workloads to the cloud. With any Microsoft Azure certification, you may find yourself managing, developing, and implementing cloud services in different industries such as finance, healthcare, banking, government, or insurance. A number of cloud computing professionals who are certified in Microsoft Azure fill positions all over the world — including remote positions in Europe (UK, France, Germany), the U.S., Asia, and others.
2. Higher salaries
Another important reason to become Microsoft Azure certified is the higher salaries and better recognition in the market. As a Microsoft Azure certified professional, your certifications represent the skillset you have. With the higher demand for cloud computing professionals, you earn better compensation packages all over the world as compared to other IT fields.
According to the salary report of ZipRecruiter, the average Azure Developer earns $131,838 per year and the average Azure Architect earns $144,866 per year. And, the salary can be increased gradually when the required courses are taken to become a Senior Azure certified professional.
The salary ranges vary in different regions and different areas of the world. The average salary of a Microsoft Azure certified professional starts from $40,914 and makes around $172,170 per year for the senior roles.
3. Structured learning
The structured learning methodology to get Microsoft Azure certifications leads you to learn different tools easily. Candidates find many common tools such as Hadoop, GitHub, Eclipse, etc. that are easy to learn, and newly interested candidates can easily adapt to Azure platform and services with simplicity and ease.
Most importantly, fresh candidates can improve their Azure learning and career path with a faster, more concise learning process. Many online resources such as tutorials, ebooks, and courses are available to learn the theoretical and practical concepts of Azure services. Cloud Academy offers a Microsoft Azure Training Library that delivers the theory, technical knowledge, and hands-on practice to get certified on Azure services.
4. Progressive career development
Microsoft Azure is one of the leading cloud service providers and offers twelve role-based Azure certifications based on market requirements. By earning any or all of the Azure role-based certifications, you can ensure professional career development and recognition in the market. Currently, most businesses are adopting Azure cloud services and the demand for Microsoft Azure certified professionals is increasing.
Azure certifications offer a wide range of professional tracks, including Azure administrator, architect, developer, security engineer, AI engineer, data scientist, and data engineer, enabling you to become a leading cloud professional in the market. There are currently 6,000,000+ government employees who are using Azure cloud services. As a Microsoft Azure certified professional, you have a better opportunity to land up a job in the government sector.
5. Vital asset for an organization
With proven expertise in Azure, you could be a very vital asset for the organization and enhance business growth. Microsoft Azure certifications leverage the benefits of profitability from the Azure cloud environment. While using the pay-as-you-go feature, you can help your organization reduce IT costs and avoid having to bear additional costs.
Compared to other cloud offerings in the market, Azure offers a comprehensive association between on-premises data centers and the cloud, especially small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can leverage the benefits of hosting their infrastructure entirely on the cloud.
An Azure cloud architect can help businesses to easily scale and migrate their workloads from on-premises to the cloud to reduce the considerable cost.
6. Better security offerings
Better security offerings can be achieved with the Microsoft Azure Security Technologies certification, which prepares you for a position as an Azure Security Engineer. As a Microsoft Azure security engineer, you are responsible for managing and securing cloud-based solutions and may also secure hybrid cloud solutions as part of an end-to-end infrastructure.
Microsoft Azure offers one of the best security protocols and tools — called the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) — that assures the complete security and protection for the hosted services and applications on Azure. Microsoft Azure has also achieved an ISO 27018 certification, recognized by the European data protection authorities for cloud privacy. This allows businesses to focus on developing their applications and other core business aspects, rather than worrying about the security of the users and their data on Azure.
7. Better integration with .NET platform
.NET is a free, cross-platform, open-source developer platform, created by Microsoft. It’s one of the most commonly used programming platform where hundreds and thousands of programmers have their hands on this coding language for building many different types of applications. It offers unique integration opportunities with Microsoft Azure without a complex process as everything is managed by Microsoft, along with a huge community ready to support.
With the community support, it has become the favorite service for many people as they are now able to build advanced applications and deploy on Azure cloud services. The integration with .NET platform is one of the great advantages of Azure for programmers who are familiar with working with the .NET platform. It allows them to easily focus on building their applications, rather than searching for the other cloud service providers to offer cloud integration for their coding platform.
Microsoft Azure also supports different open-source platforms such as Linux, Java, and PHP to run their applications on Azure. Better integration of a coding platform with Azure significantly improves the performance and working agility.
8. Commitment
If you are committed to learning Microsoft Azure, you must improve your capabilities and go through a lot to become Microsoft Azure certified. To achieve your goal and stay committed, we recommend to enroll yourself in a Certification Learning Path and spend time to study thoroughly. The certification you earn acts as a very important credential — not only on your resume but also in your professional career.
Being Microsoft Azure certified shows that you’re eager to dedicate your time and resources to accomplish a specific objective. These qualities are highly admired by top employers and will improve your career advancement in the long run. This can also lead to a wider range of career opportunities and help you to stand out from the epic competition.
9. Enterprise agreement clause
The enterprise agreement clause helps businesses develop their applications using Microsoft Azure, and it can be used to get Microsoft tools and products at discounted prices while using the Azure cloud services. With this clause, organizations can get most out the Microsoft services. As a Microsoft Azure certified professional, you can have an exciting career that associates you with 60 million potential Microsoft customers and land up with a company to showcase the skills you have learned during the Microsoft Azure training and certification process.
10. Improve DevOps skills
One of the latest technologies in the IT field is DevOps. It’s a set of practices where development and operation services are combined to deliver solutions to the customers. DevOps brings people, processes, and technologies together to provide valuable services and develop products that meet business objectives.
With DevOps skills, you can deliver cloud services such as design and implementation strategies for developing applications, automating processes, monitoring cloud environments, and continuous delivery.
Future expectations
We discussed 10 reasons that should encourage you to choose a career as a Microsoft Azure certified professional. With the rapid adoption of cloud, it is expected that:
- 85% of customer interactions will be automated
- The developer community will be expanded 10x
- Productivity will be increased by 400%
- Data will be managed autonomously more than 50%
- A single identity platform will be used by 90% of the enterprises to bridge on-premises and the cloud
- More than 70% of IT functions will be completely automated in the future
These cloud expectations should help you feel more confident that a career in Microsoft Azure will not diminish in the future, but rather continue to rapidly grow. If you’re interested in learning more about how to become Microsoft Azure certified, Cloud Academy offers a Microsoft Azure Training Library. It’s loaded with tons of valuable resources such as Learning Paths, Courses, Certification Preparation Exams, Quizzes, and Hands-on Labs to learn and excel in Microsoft Azure.
