Most In-Demand Microsoft Certifications in 2023

Microsoft is one of the leading tech giants that provide various certification programs to individuals, helping them enhance their technical knowledge and skills. Microsoft certifications are highly recognized in the industry and can help individuals stand out in a competitive job market. As technology continues to evolve, Microsoft certifications are becoming increasingly in demand. From an aspiring student or job seeker’s perspective, completing any one of the top and most in-demand Microsoft certifications will provide them with a formidable career path to progress. So, let’s dive in and explore each of these certifications in detail.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals
The AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals certification exam is geared towards candidates with non-technical backgrounds looking to demonstrate their foundational knowledge of cloud services, in addition to how those services are provided within the Microsoft Azure cloud. These candidates includes those involved in selling or purchasing cloud based solutions and services or have some involvement in cloud based services and solutions. It also includes those with a technical background looking to validate their foundational level knowledge of the cloud.

No technical IT experience is required for this exam, but some general IT knowledge would certainly be beneficial.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate
The AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator certification exam is geared towards candidates with expertise implementing, managing, and monitoring an organization’s Microsoft Azure environment, including virtual networks, storage, compute, identity, security, and governance. Azure administrators are professionals that serve as part of a larger team to implement the cloud infrastructure needed for an organization. They will coordinate with other roles on the team to deliver Azure networking, security, database, application development, and DevOps solutions.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Fundamentals
The DP-900 Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals certification exam is geared towards candidates with a solid foundation and understanding of core data concepts, such as relational data, non-relational data, big data, and analytics. They also must have familiarity with the general responsibilities, roles, and tasks in the realms of data and data analytics.

Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Fundamentals
The AI-900 Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals certification exam will validate your mastery of basics in AI (Artificial Intelligence) and can help jump-start your career and get ready to dive deeper into other technical opportunities Azure has to offer. This certification will prove you have the AI skills it takes to build a better world through Azure AI, and validates foundational knowledge of machine learning (ML) and AI concepts, along with related Microsoft Azure services.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
The Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification is earned by passing the AZ-305 Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions exam, and already passing the AZ-104 Azure Administrator exam as a prerequisite. Candidates for this certification are expected to have subject matter expertise in designing cloud and hybrid solutions that run on Microsoft Azure, including compute, network, storage, monitoring, and security. Additional responsibilities of this role include advising stakeholders and translating business requirements into designs for secure, scalable, and reliable Azure solutions.

Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Fundamentals
The PL-900 Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals certification exam will validate your knowledge in building solutions with Microsoft Power Platform, including familiarity in automating business processes with Power Automate, and create simple Power Apps experiences. It is recommended that you have a familiarity with computer technology, data analytics, cloud computing, and the internet before starting this certification.

Microsoft Certified: Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals
The SC-900 Microsoft Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals certification exam will validate that you have a firm grasp of a range of topics around cybersecurity. Including demonstrating your knowledge of Microsoft Security, compliance, and identity (SCI) solutions, and an understanding of how Microsoft SCI solution provide holistic, end-to-end cybersecurity capabilities.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate
The AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure certification exam will validate your skills as a cloud developer in Microsoft Azure. It will validate your proficiency in Azure SDKs, data storage options, data connections, APIs, app authentication and authorization, compute, and container deployment, debugging, performance tuning, and monitoring.

Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate
The PL-300 Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst certification exam will validate your expertise in the fundamental understanding of data repositories and data processes, both on-premises and in the cloud, as well as being a subject matter expert that can enable an organization to maximize the value of their data assets by using Power BI.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate
The DP-203 Microsoft Data Engineering on Microsoft Azure certification exam will validate you have the subject matter expertise to integrate, transform, and consolidate data from various structured and unstructured data systems into structures that are suitable for building analytics solutions.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Security Engineer Associate
The AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Technologies certification exam is geared towards Security Engineers who implement security controls, maintain the security posture, manages identity and access, and protects data, applications, and networks. These candidates should be able to identify and remediate vulnerabilities by using a variety of security tools, implement threat protection, and respond to security incident escalations.

Azure Security Engineers will generally serve as part of a larger team that’s dedicated to managing cloud-based systems and security. They might also be involved in securing hybrid cloud environments as part of an end-to-end infrastructure.

Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert
The AZ-400 Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions certification exam is geared towards DevOps Professionals (or Site Reliability Engineers / SREs) who combine people, process, and tools to continuously deliver value to meet users needs and business objectives. These candidates streamline delivery by optimizing practices, improve communication and collaboration, and create automation. They design and implement strategies for app code and infrastructure that allows for continuous integration, continuous testing, continuous delivery, and continuous monitoring and feedback.

Exam candidates are expected to be proficient with Agile practices, and must be familiar with both Azure Administration and Azure Development, and should be experts in one of these areas. They must be able to design and implement DevOps practices for version control, compliance, infrastructure as code (IaC), configuration management, build, release, and testing by using Microsoft Azure technologies.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Scientist Associate
The DP-100 Designing and Implementing a Data Science Solution on Azure certification exam validates your expertise as a subject matter expert in applying data science and machine learning to implement and run machine learning workloads on Microsoft Azure. This role includes responsibilities for designing and creating a suitable working environment for data science workloads, exploring data, training machine learning models, implementing pipelines, running jobs to prepare for production; as well as managing, deploying, and monitoring scalable machine learning solutions.

In conclusion, Microsoft certifications are highly recognized in the industry and can help individuals stand out in a competitive job market. The certifications mentioned above are the most in-demand Microsoft certifications for 2023. These certifications cover a wide range of skills and technologies, including cloud computing, business applications, security, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Earning these certifications can increase their chances of getting hired or promoted in their careers.