Top cloud certifications for team development

The cloud market is expected to reach $5,150.92 billion by 2034. But cloud remains one of the top tech skills gaps. Certifications are one way to help your teams close that gap. 

“Organizations need skilled professionals to deploy, manage, and secure all their infrastructure and applications. That also means those skill sets and the certifications are more valuable than ever,” says Andru Estes, Principal Author, Cloud at Pluralsight.

In this article, Andru explains which cloud certifications your people should prioritize and how to help them pass their exams.

There are a lot of different cloud certifications. When it comes to prioritization, Andru suggests starting with the big three providers: AWS, Azure, and GCP. 

These certifications will give your workforce a solid cloud foundation and experience with a wide range of tools and technologies. Then, if your teams need niche or specialized cloud skills, consider certifications from smaller cloud providers.

Based on current job listing requirements, these are the most in-demand cloud certifications by vendor.

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional

• AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty

• AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty

• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

Learn more about each AWS certification.

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate

• Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate (Microsoft retired this certification on March 31, 2025.)

• Google Professional DevOps Engineer

• Google Professional Cloud Architect

• Google Professional - Data Engineer

• Google Foundational - Cloud Digital Leader

• Google Associate - Google Workspace Administrator

• ISC2 Cloud Security Professional (CCSP)

• CompTIA Cloud+

Once you’ve identified the most important cloud certifications for your team, you need to support their learning journey. Share these tips and tricks to help them ace their exams.

Every certification has a list of topics, services, and technologies that will be covered during the exam. Review these official exam guides to develop tailored upskilling programs for your teams.

“Use them as checklists and study material to make sure you're putting together an appropriate comprehensive plan,” says Andru.

If you don’t have time to create a certification path from scratch, check out Pluralsight’s cloud certification prep paths for in-demand certs like the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate.

As you look at certification exam guides, you’ll probably notice how much information they contain. For example, the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate Exam Guide has more than ten pages of exam content.

With so much to learn, cramming isn’t going to work. And you don’t want your employees to just earn their certifications—you want them to be able to use that knowledge at work. This is where a study plan comes into play.

“Create a study schedule with manageable chunks and sections. Make it something your employees can repeat on a daily basis. You want to form a habit, because once it's a habit, it's going to become a lot easier to do it. Maybe it's as simple as [studying for] 15 or 20 minutes a day over lunch, Monday through Friday,” says Andru.

Encourage managers to check in with their teams each week. This reinforces the learning habit and shows employees that earning their certification is just as important as other business objectives.

People learn in different ways. Provide a variety of learning options so your people can choose the methods that work best for them.

Consider a mix of video courses, online certification paths, walkthroughs from official cloud providers, workshops, and blogs.

“Whatever it is, leverage as many resources as you can. You want to be exhaustive here,” advises Andru.

As your teams learn, give them practice exams to test their knowledge. Practice exams help employees check their current knowledge and highlight weak areas to focus on.

“It’s also going to get your employees comfortable with exam conditions. You can simulate time constraints, which is added pressure on the exam. You can see how questions might actually be worded, as opposed to a basic quiz that doesn't word questions in lengthy scenarios like AWS and Azure do,” says Andru.

“Teaching new concepts allows employees to take a step back,” says Andru. “They're going to really have to think, ‘Okay, I understood this concept this way. This person that I'm trying to help understands it or does not understand it the same way. How can I make this into something that they can retain? How can I explain this differently?’”

Give your team teaching opportunities during meetings or establish weekly lunch-and-learn sessions where everyone takes a turn presenting.

Cloud knowledge alone isn’t enough to pass a certification exam. Employees also need to hone their test-taking skills. That includes the ability to ignore irrelevant information.

“When you're [taking] exams, there's going to be a ton of information and scenarios that really don't add anything to selecting the answer, right? It's just there. You're reading it, and it takes up space in your brain, which is not good. So you have to get good at ignoring that stuff,” says Andru. “Narrow it down to the important stuff.”

Exam questions contain fluff that employees can safely ignore. They also contain keywords that can point to the correct answer. Knowing the difference is a critical skill for passing cloud certification exams. 

Andru refers to it as letting the exam help your employees. For example, if a question asks about a serverless service, your employees can eliminate response options about EC2 and Azure VM.

“There are going to be parts and questions that help your employees immediately eliminate wrong answers and cross-reference between questions. Past questions and future questions might help them on questions they’re stumped on currently,” says Andru.

Time limits add to the pressure of cloud certification exams. Encourage employees to keep going, even if they’re stuck on a question.

“When you get stuck on something, and you're kind of just spinning your wheels, do yourself a favor and make an educated guess. Then flag that question for review and move on,” advises Andru.

“Ideally, at the end of the exam, employees have five or ten minutes to go back, review it, and make a better educated guess. But, at worst, at least they have something on the scorecard to get graded.”

If an employee fails their cloud certification exam, acknowledge the work they put into studying and empathize with them. Then help them identify areas where they scored well and where they need to improve. Work with them to create a revised study plan for their next attempt.

“A lot of people are afraid to fail. They think it's embarrassing. I've failed in my many years of certifications several times. It does suck, but you need to be using failure as a learning opportunity,” says Andru.

“Being certified does not equal being qualified, period. The real work starts after the exam: Applying the knowledge that you learned on the exam during that learning journey and pursuing more advanced skills. Again, it should be a launching point to start learning more deeply, start practicing, getting hands-on, and breaking and fixing things,” says Andru.

“Adopt a lifelong learning mindset. You have to embrace curiosity. You have to continuously seek to learn new and challenging things to really push yourself.”

Get the upskilling framework for your team—watch the on-demand webinar for all of Andru’s advice.