Certifications for Web Developers

One of the recurring themes I see coming up in posts on the forums I frequent is the "I am new to certification, I do x&y tech what should I do?" type questions.

So I have decided to put together a couple of links pages that show the different certs from the different vendors and hopefully that will put people on the right track. It can be very daunting when you are starting out as there is a multitude of different certifications from lots of different vendors.

I will try my best to include a short description if I can on the different certs/vendors. This list is by no means the full list of possible certfications buy gives an idea of what is out there.

Without further ado

Microsoft

Microsoft have a couple of different certifications for web developers on the .NET platform. These are

• Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist which is the intro certification
• Microsoft Certified Professional Developer which is the Professional level cert, a more advanced cert than MCTS.

Both the MCPD and MCTS are offered for .NET Frameworks 2.0 and 3.5. The ones for web developers are

• MCTS 2.0 Web Applications for ASP.NET developers on the 2.0 Framework
• MCTS 2.0 Distributed Applications for developers doing Web Services on 2.0
• MCTS 3.5 ASP.NET Applications for ASP.NET developers on 3.5
• MCTS 3.5 Windows Communication Foundation for developers doing WCF
• MCTS 3.5 Windows Presentation Foundation is not neccesarily a web developer cert, but if you are doing SilverLight it is a nice to have
• MCPD Web Developer 2.0 for ASP.NET devs on 2.0
• MCPD Web Developer 3.5 for ASP.NET devs on 3.5

It is also possible to do the MCPD Enterprise Developer on either 2.0 or 3.5 as they encompass the web developer certification and have a broader scope of skills

Zend

Zend offer certifications on PHP5. The ZCE is the main certification on PHP5.

IBM

IBM offer certification on their WebSphere, Lotus, and other products. More information here

Adobe

Adobe have their Adobe Certified Expert(ACE) and Adobe Certified Associate (ACA) certifications which are more aimed at web designers but might be handy for those of us gifted enough to actually make it look good

Sun

Sun have a couple of different Java certifications available.

• Sun Certified Java Associate
• Sun Certified Java Programmer
• Sun Certfied Web Component Developer
• Sun Certified Java Developer
• Sun Certfied Developer For Java Web Services
• Sun Certfied Specialist for NetBeans IDE
  

MobiForge

MobiForge also have the dotMobi Mobile Web Developer certfication for those who do mobile web development.

CIW

CIW have different certifications available depending on what aspect of web developement you do

• CIW Professional
• CIW Web Developer
• Master CIW Designer
• Master CIW Enterprise Developer

World Organisation of Webmasters (WOW)

WOW have quite a few certfications available too.

I hope this list helps. If I learn of more I will update this post