Cloud certifications are the single highest-ROI investment in an IT career. AWS Solutions Architect Associate holders average £15,000–£25,000 more than their non-certified counterparts, and the gap widens at the Professional level. This plan provides structured study schedules, resource recommendations, and exam strategies for AWS, Azure, and GCP certifications.
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Which Certification to Start With
- 1
New to cloud entirely
Start with AWS Cloud Practitioner (CCP) or Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900). These foundational certs take 3–4 weeks to pass and establish the vocabulary and mental model for everything that follows. They do not count heavily on CVs but they prevent you from failing an Associate exam on foundational gaps.
- 2
Some existing IT experience (networking, sysadmin, dev)
Skip the foundational cert and go directly to AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03). It's widely considered the most valuable single cloud certification. Study time: 6–10 weeks for experienced IT pros.
- 3
Your organisation is heavily Azure/M365
Prioritise AZ-104 (Azure Administrator). The skills transfer directly to daily work managing Azure resources, Entra ID, and M365 integrations.
- 4
You are a developer building on AWS
AWS Certified Developer Associate is more relevant than SAA if your work is primarily writing and deploying applications rather than architecting infrastructure.
- 5
Career goal is DevOps/Platform Engineering
After your first Associate cert (SAA or equivalent), prioritise Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) and HashiCorp Terraform Associate. These two have extremely high market demand.
AWS Certifications: 8-Week SAA-C03 Study Plan
| Week | Focus Area | Study Hours | Key Services | Resources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Core Concepts: IAM, Billing, Global Infrastructure | 8–10h | IAM, Route 53, CloudFront, S3 basics | AWS Skill Builder free tier + Stephane Maarek Udemy (SAA-C03) |
| Week 2 | Compute: EC2, Auto Scaling, Load Balancing | 10h | EC2, ELB, ASG, AMI, Spot/RI/SP | Maarek course + AWS docs for EC2 pricing models |
| Week 3 | Storage, Databases | 10h | S3 (advanced), EBS, EFS, RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora, ElastiCache | AWS database comparison whitepaper |
| Week 4 | Networking: VPC Deep Dive | 10h | VPC, subnets, NACLs, SGs, VPG, Direct Connect, Transit Gateway | Adrian Cantrill (cantrill.io) - best for VPC depth |
| Week 5 | High Availability, Decoupling | 10h | SQS, SNS, Kinesis, EventBridge, Step Functions, Fargate, ECS | AWS architecture blog case studies |
| Week 6 | Security, Monitoring, Deployment | 10h | KMS, WAF, Shield, CloudTrail, CloudWatch, CloudFormation, CDK | AWS Well-Architected Framework whitepaper |
| Week 7 | Full practice exams (3+ attempts) | 12h | All services - mixed | Tutorials Dojo SAA-C03 practice exams (best available) |
| Week 8 | Weakness review + final practice exams | 10h | Focus on consistently wrong areas | AWS exam readiness course (free on Skill Builder) |
Week 1
- Focus Area
- Core Concepts: IAM, Billing, Global Infrastructure
- Study Hours
- 8–10h
- Key Services
- IAM, Route 53, CloudFront, S3 basics
- Resources
- AWS Skill Builder free tier + Stephane Maarek Udemy (SAA-C03)
Week 2
- Focus Area
- Compute: EC2, Auto Scaling, Load Balancing
- Study Hours
- 10h
- Key Services
- EC2, ELB, ASG, AMI, Spot/RI/SP
- Resources
- Maarek course + AWS docs for EC2 pricing models
Week 3
- Focus Area
- Storage, Databases
- Study Hours
- 10h
- Key Services
- S3 (advanced), EBS, EFS, RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora, ElastiCache
- Resources
- AWS database comparison whitepaper
Week 4
- Focus Area
- Networking: VPC Deep Dive
- Study Hours
- 10h
- Key Services
- VPC, subnets, NACLs, SGs, VPG, Direct Connect, Transit Gateway
- Resources
- Adrian Cantrill (cantrill.io) - best for VPC depth
Week 5
- Focus Area
- High Availability, Decoupling
- Study Hours
- 10h
- Key Services
- SQS, SNS, Kinesis, EventBridge, Step Functions, Fargate, ECS
- Resources
- AWS architecture blog case studies
Week 6
- Focus Area
- Security, Monitoring, Deployment
- Study Hours
- 10h
- Key Services
- KMS, WAF, Shield, CloudTrail, CloudWatch, CloudFormation, CDK
- Resources
- AWS Well-Architected Framework whitepaper
Week 7
- Focus Area
- Full practice exams (3+ attempts)
- Study Hours
- 12h
- Key Services
- All services - mixed
- Resources
- Tutorials Dojo SAA-C03 practice exams (best available)
Week 8
- Focus Area
- Weakness review + final practice exams
- Study Hours
- 10h
- Key Services
- Focus on consistently wrong areas
- Resources
- AWS exam readiness course (free on Skill Builder)
Azure Certification Path
| Certification | Code | Level | Prerequisites | Study Time | Best Udemy Course |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azure Fundamentals | AZ-900 | Foundational | None | 2–3 weeks | Adam Marczak (free on YouTube) |
| Azure Administrator | AZ-104 | Associate | AZ-900 recommended | 6–8 weeks | Thomas Mitchell / Scott Duffy |
| Azure Developer Associate | AZ-204 | Associate | Dev experience | 6–8 weeks | Alan Rodrigues |
| Azure Solutions Architect Expert | AZ-305 | Expert | AZ-104 required | 8–12 weeks | Scott Duffy (AZ-305) + MS Learn |
| Azure Security Engineer | AZ-500 | Associate | AZ-104 recommended | 6–8 weeks | Howard Dierking on Pluralsight |
| Azure DevOps Engineer Expert | AZ-400 | Expert | AZ-104 + AZ-204 | 8–12 weeks | WhizLabs or ACloudGuru |
Azure Fundamentals
- Code
- AZ-900
- Level
- Foundational
- Prerequisites
- None
- Study Time
- 2–3 weeks
- Best Udemy Course
- Adam Marczak (free on YouTube)
Azure Administrator
- Code
- AZ-104
- Level
- Associate
- Prerequisites
- AZ-900 recommended
- Study Time
- 6–8 weeks
- Best Udemy Course
- Thomas Mitchell / Scott Duffy
Azure Developer Associate
- Code
- AZ-204
- Level
- Associate
- Prerequisites
- Dev experience
- Study Time
- 6–8 weeks
- Best Udemy Course
- Alan Rodrigues
Azure Solutions Architect Expert
- Code
- AZ-305
- Level
- Expert
- Prerequisites
- AZ-104 required
- Study Time
- 8–12 weeks
- Best Udemy Course
- Scott Duffy (AZ-305) + MS Learn
Azure Security Engineer
- Code
- AZ-500
- Level
- Associate
- Prerequisites
- AZ-104 recommended
- Study Time
- 6–8 weeks
- Best Udemy Course
- Howard Dierking on Pluralsight
Azure DevOps Engineer Expert
- Code
- AZ-400
- Level
- Expert
- Prerequisites
- AZ-104 + AZ-204
- Study Time
- 8–12 weeks
- Best Udemy Course
- WhizLabs or ACloudGuru
Exam Day Guide
What’s next?