Cloud engineer certifications: what 7,726 US job ads name

Which certification is best for a cloud engineer?

No single certification is best for every cloud engineer. The right one depends on how much IT work you have done and which cloud your employer runs. The table sorts the common options by situation.

Source: vendor pages listed in the Sources section, checked October 3 and 5, 2026.

For most readers, the best certification for a cloud engineer is an associate exam on the vendor their market names: Solutions Architect – Associate or AZ-104. That advice rests on the vendors' own descriptions more than on our counts. The associate level tests the running and design work the job involves, while the entry exams test vocabulary. We do not count the associate titles separately, so our data cannot rank them. Two Microsoft exams that older lists recommend are gone: AZ-204 (Azure Developer) retired on July 31, 2026, and AZ-500 (Azure Security Engineer) on August 31, 2026 (Microsoft Learn).

Which certifications do cloud-engineer ads name, by country?

We asked Adzuna how many ads in each country had the words cloud engineer in the job title in October 2026 (in Brazil engenheiro cloud, in Mexico and Spain ingeniero cloud, in France ingénieur cloud). Then we counted the ads that contain each certificate phrase anywhere in the text. We track four phrases for this job: aws certified, which covers any AWS certification; azure certification, a general phrase for Microsoft's Azure exams; the exam code az-104; and the full name aws certified cloud practitioner.

The four phrases are not built the same way, so their counts do not rank the two clouds. Every official AWS title we checked begins with the words AWS Certified, so the AWS phrase catches an ad that names any of them. Microsoft's Azure titles begin with Microsoft Certified: Azure, which the Azure phrase does not match; it catches only ads that use that exact wording, and an ad can name AZ-104 without it. Read each figure as the number of ads that used one phrase.

In the US, of the 7,726 cloud-engineer ads, 297 contained aws certified, 178 contained azure certification, 105 contained az-104 and 42 contained aws certified cloud practitioner. Every ad with the Cloud Practitioner's full name also counts toward aws certified, because the longer phrase includes the shorter one. We do not count the associate titles on their own, so we cannot say which AWS exam the other ads name.

The UK count covers 475 cloud-engineer ads. Of those, 8 contained aws certified, 17 contained azure certification, 15 contained az-104 and 3 contained the Cloud Practitioner's full name.

India's count covers 1,150 cloud-engineer ads. There, 29 contained aws certified, 13 contained azure certification, 17 contained az-104 and 3 named the Cloud Practitioner in full.

Ads written in German, French, Polish or Italian can name a certification in their own words, such as certification AWS, which our English phrases do not match. So read the next counts as minimums, not as a sign that employers there ignore certificates. In these four countries we count the two vendor phrases but not AZ-104. Of the 1,160 German cloud-engineer ads, 10 contained aws certified and 1 contained azure certification. In France, the two figures were 2 and 0 of 340 ingénieur cloud ads. In Poland they were 0 and 1 of 332; in Italy, 0 and 0 of 121.

For Brazil, Mexico and Spain we give counts, not percentages. The phrase aws certified appeared in none of the 11 engenheiro cloud ads in Brazil, in none of the 22 ingeniero cloud ads in Mexico and in none of the 23 ingeniero cloud ads in Spain.

What the count misses: we match exact phrases. An ad that asks for "AWS certification" or "an Azure Administrator certification" without our wording is not counted, and neither is one that asks for "a cloud certification" without naming a vendor. Our data also does not separate ads that require a certificate from ads that only prefer one. The figures show how often employers write a phrase into the ad, not how a recruiter weighs a certificate on a resume. How we count.

Show the numbers

Certifications in cloud engineer job ads, by country. Share of job ads that name each item. Source: Adzuna job ads, October 2026.

Item	United States	United Kingdom	India	France	Germany	Poland
AWS	United States3.8%	United Kingdom2%	India2.5%	France2 ads	Germany10 ads	Poland0 ads
AWS Solutions Architect Associate	United States3.1%	United Kingdom1%	India1.7%	France0 ads	Germany0 ads	Poland0 ads
Microsoft Azure certifications	United States2.3%	United Kingdom4%	India1.1%	France0 ads	Germany1 ad	Poland1 ad
Google Associate Cloud Engineer	United States2.2%	United Kingdom0 ads	India0 ads	France0 ads	Germany0 ads	Poland0 ads
AZ-305	United States1.5%	United Kingdom2%	India8 ads	France0 ads	Germany0 ads	Poland0 ads
AZ-104	United States1.4%	United Kingdom3%	India1.5%	France0 ads	Germany0 ads	Poland0 ads
AWS Cloud Practitioner	United States42 ads	United Kingdom3 ads	India3 ads	France0 ads	Germany0 ads	Poland0 ads
Terraform Associate	United States40 ads	United Kingdom2 ads	India9 ads	France0 ads	Germany0 ads	Poland0 ads

Which skills do cloud-engineer ads ask for?

We track two tools for this job. Terraform was named in 20% of 7,726 US cloud-engineer ads, and Kubernetes, a system for running containers, in 15%. In UK cloud-engineer ads the two figures were 22% and 13%; in India, 15% and 14%.

A tool named in an ad describes the daily work; a certificate phrase describes one way of proving knowledge. We do not track other skills for this job, such as Linux, networking or a programming language, so we have no figure for them and will not estimate one.

Both tools have their own certifications. HashiCorp's Terraform Associate costs $70.50, takes 60 minutes online and is valid for two years. The Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) from the Linux Foundation costs $445 with one retake included; it is a two-hour exam of command-line tasks on live clusters, valid for two years. We count the tools in cloud-engineer ads, not these two certificates, so we cannot say how often employers name them. Our Terraform Associate page and CKA page cover them in detail.

The split between tools and certificates matters for how a beginner spends study time. An exam shows that you studied a vendor's services. A Terraform file that builds a small network and a server, kept in a public repository you can walk through in an interview, shows the skill the ads name. To check your own market, read 20 cloud-engineer ads in your city and note every tool and certificate they repeat.

AWS vs Azure for cloud engineers: what each market names

The honest answer to "AWS or Azure?" comes from the ads where you live, not from a global ranking. We have AZ-104 shares for three markets, so those three show both vendors side by side. In the US, aws certified appeared in 3.8% of 7,726 cloud-engineer ads, azure certification in 2.3% and az-104 in 1.4%. For the 475 UK ads, aws certified appeared in 2%, azure certification in 4% and az-104 in 3%. In India, aws certified appeared in 2.5% of 1,150 ads, azure certification in 1.1% and az-104 in 1.5%. Because the Azure figure is split across two phrases that can overlap in one ad, adding them together would double-count some ads. Compare the numbers within your own country, and treat a gap of a few ads as noise.

The vendors' own rules differ in ways that matter for your budget.

Source: AWS certification, exam pricing and exam pages; Microsoft Learn AZ-900, AZ-104, certification FAQ and renewal pages. Checked October 5, 2026.

What the two paths cost in exam fees, at US prices: AWS gives a 50% discount voucher for a future exam once you pass one. Cloud Practitioner ($100) followed by Solutions Architect – Associate at the discounted $75 comes to $175. On Azure, AZ-900 ($99) plus AZ-104 (typically $165) comes to about $264, and keeping AZ-104 costs nothing but a yearly online assessment. If you already work in IT and skip the entry exam, the fee is $150 or about $165. Outside the US, check the price for your country on the vendor's page before you book.

How to choose: start with the cloud that the employers you want to work for already run. If you cannot tell, note which vendor comes up in the local ads you read. If your current job has you managing user accounts in Microsoft Entra ID or writing PowerShell, AZ-104 builds on knowledge Microsoft lists as expected background. When the two clouds are close in your market, pick one and finish its associate exam before you start the other. Our reading: a second fundamentals exam teaches vocabulary you already have, while an associate exam tests the work. Our Solutions Architect vs Azure comparison sets the two side by side, and the AWS overview and Azure overview list every level.

Cloud certification for beginners: fundamentals, associate, hands-on work

A cloud engineer certification for beginners works best as the first of three steps. The fundamentals exam teaches the vocabulary, the associate exam tests whether you can run and design systems, and hands-on work gives an employer something to look at. People already working in IT can start at step two.

Step 1: an entry-level cloud engineer certification

There are three entry exams with no experience requirement. AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) costs $100, has 65 questions in 90 minutes and stays valid for three years; AWS says candidates could have up to six months of exposure to its cloud, but that this is not required. Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) costs $99 in the US, lasts 45 minutes and does not expire. Google's Cloud Digital Leader costs $99 and is valid for three years.

In October 2026, the full phrase aws certified cloud practitioner appeared in 42 of the 7,726 US cloud-engineer ads. We do not count AZ-900 or the Google exam in cloud-engineer ads. Our Cloud Practitioner page covers what CLF-C02 tests and who should skip it, and the Cloud Practitioner vs AZ-900 comparison helps if you are torn between the two.

People who posted about passing AZ-900 on Reddit report a median of 11 days of study (13 reports). That is a self-selected group of people who passed and chose to post, so read it as a rough guide, not a plan.

Step 2: an associate exam

The associate level is where cloud-engineer work starts to show. For its Associate exams, AWS states that prior cloud or IT experience is recommended. Solutions Architect – Associate costs $150, has 65 questions in 130 minutes and needs a scaled score of 720 to pass. The CloudOps Engineer exam (SOA-C03), which replaced SysOps Administrator in September 2025, costs the same.

On the Microsoft side, AZ-104 is a 100-minute exam that typically costs $165 and needs a score of 700. Its skills outline, current since April 17, 2026, weights identities and governance at 20 to 25%, compute at 20 to 25%, storage at 15 to 20%, virtual networking at 15 to 20%, and monitoring and maintenance at 10 to 15%. Google's Associate Cloud Engineer costs $125, with 50 to 60 questions in two hours.

People who posted on Reddit report a median of two months of study for Solutions Architect – Associate (15 reports, middle half 1.2 to 3 months) and 5.5 weeks for AZ-104 (21 reports). Our AZ-104 vs AZ-900 comparison explains what the jump between the two levels involves.

Step 3: hands-on work employers can see

The exams test what you know about one vendor. The ads in our count name tools you use with any vendor, and the two we track are Terraform and Kubernetes. A useful project is small and finished: a Terraform configuration that creates a network, a server and a storage bucket, with a short README that explains your choices and what it costs to run. The project costs mostly time, plus whatever the cloud charges for the resources you leave running, so set a billing alert before you start and shut the resources down after each session.

Coming from IT support or systems administration

Microsoft's list of what AZ-104 candidates should already know reads like a description of support and administration work: operating systems, networking, servers, virtualization, PowerShell and Microsoft Entra ID. A job at a service desk or in a server team builds that knowledge while you are paid for it. If you have no IT job yet, our IT-support page shows which certificates help-desk ads name, and the systems-administrator page covers the next step. If your gap is a degree rather than a job, see our guide to becoming a cloud engineer without a degree.

Which cloud security certification is best?

For a beginner, none yet: the cloud security exams that remain expect years of experience. The best certification for a cloud security engineer depends on the vendor, and one of the main options is no longer available. Microsoft retired AZ-500 (Azure Security Engineer Associate) on August 31, 2026, and it can no longer be earned or renewed. If your employer runs Azure, check Microsoft's current credential catalog for its security certifications before you plan a path; we have not reviewed their current requirements.

AWS's Security Specialty exam costs $300 and runs 170 minutes. AWS aims it at people with five years of IT security experience and two or more years of hands-on work securing AWS systems. Google Cloud lists a Security certification at its Professional level, where it recommends three or more years of experience. We do not count any of these in cloud-engineer ads, so we cannot say how often employers name them.

If security is your goal, the experience levels the vendors state point to one order: an associate cloud exam first, then a security credential once you have the years. Our cybersecurity-analyst page covers the entry-level security exams.

Show the numbers

What the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification costs: required and optional fees (USD). Source: aws.amazon.com, checked October 3, 2026.

Item	Fee
Fees to get certified: Exam	$150
Fees to get certified: One retake (optional)	$150

Do you need a certification to be a cloud engineer?

No. Cloud engineers need skills that employers can check; a certification is one way to show some of them. We found no law or licensing body that requires one. Some employers do write a vendor certificate into the ad, and the country section gives the counts.

Is a cloud engineer certification worth it?

An associate exam is worth it when it fills a gap you can name: you know the servers and networks but not the vendor's services, or an employer you want to work for names it in its ads. A fundamentals exam is worth $100 if you are new to IT and need a structured start. A stack of entry badges adds little. The entry exams test vocabulary, and AWS itself places the work the job involves at the Associate level and above. In October 2026, the AWS entry exam's full name appeared in 42 of the 7,726 US cloud-engineer ads.

What do you need to become a cloud engineer?

Going by Microsoft's AZ-104 outline and the ads we count, you need working knowledge of operating systems, networking, servers and scripting; one cloud's core services; and infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform. Our reading: the certificate is the part with a clear syllabus and a fixed price. The rest you show through a job in IT, a project or both.

Best certifications for cloud engineers: what Reddit posters ask

We grouped the questions in the Reddit posts we collected on r/AWSCertifications, r/AzureCertification, r/devops and r/ITCareerQuestions. Posters are a self-selected group, so these show what people ask, not how many people hold a view.

• Which Microsoft certifications are most valuable for jobs as a cloud engineer or a cloud security engineer (r/AzureCertification, June 2026). Our answer: AZ-104 for the engineering side; for security, see the security section.
• In the same thread, which skills or projects besides certifications helped land interviews. Our answer: the tools in the skills section, shown in a project you can explain.
• Whether AWS certifications still carry weight with employers in 2026 (r/AWSCertifications, September 2026). Our answer: some employers name them, as the counts show, and the tools in the skills section describe the work itself, so pair the exam with hands-on practice.
• Whether the free AWS Skill Builder courses are worth doing without paying for an exam (r/AWSCertifications, July 2026). Our answer: the courses teach; the exam is what an ad can name. If your target ads use aws certified, budget for one exam.
• Whether to do the Cloud Resume Challenge before an AWS exam (r/devops, August 2026). We have no data on that project's results; as a format, a public project built with Terraform matches what the ads name.
• A poster who passed AZ-900 and AZ-104 with no experience asked how to break into cloud (r/AzureCertification, July 2026), and another weighed the CCNA against AZ-104 for a remote job within 12 months (r/ITCareerQuestions, September 2026). Our answer for both: an IT job that builds the experience AWS and Microsoft expect, plus a project. We count the CCNA for network engineers; the network-engineer page has that figure.

Related roles and where to go next

A DevOps engineer works on the build and deployment side of the same systems, and our count tracks AWS certification for that job too. For every cloud and DevOps credential we cover in one place, see the cloud and DevOps field overview.

Sources

• Adzuna job-ad counts, cloud-engineer ads in 10 countries, October 2026; analysis: CertWorthIt. How we count.
• AWS, certification overview, exam pricing, Cloud Practitioner, Solutions Architect – Associate, CloudOps Engineer, AI Practitioner and Security Specialty, checked October 3 and 5, 2026.
• Microsoft Learn, AZ-900, Azure Administrator Associate, AZ-104 study guide, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Azure Security Engineer, credential retirement, AI-900, certification FAQ and renewal, checked October 3, 2026.
• Google Cloud, certifications, Associate Cloud Engineer and Cloud Digital Leader, checked October 3, 2026.
• CompTIA, Cloud+; HashiCorp, Terraform Associate; Linux Foundation, CKA, checked October 3, 2026.
• Reddit threads linked in the text, from the posts we collected.

Edited by Elena Marsh · Data checked October 5, 2026