If you’re in the data science field, getting a certification might help you validate your knowledge and skills and differentiate yourself in the job market. In this article, I’ll talk about five Data Science certifications that could prove beneficial. And as a bonus, toward the end of the article, I’ll explain factors you should consider when choosing a certification and how to research the market demand for data science certifications.

Now I’ll talk about the 5 data science certifications. The first three are related to cloud computing. The last two are vendor-neutral.

Cloud Certifications

AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty

This is likely the most popular certification on the list as well.

This exam tests you on your ability to design, implement, deploy, and maintain machine learning (ML) solutions. Additionally, a high percentage of the questions are focused solely on machine learning concepts and not AWS’s products.

You can download the exam guide and sample questions on the web page for this certification.

Here are some resources that you can use to study for the certification:

• This course on Udemy provides 65 practice exams questions and should help you know what to expect: AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty: Full Practice Exam
• Here’s another helpful course on Udemy and it provides explanations about Amazon SageMaker and other related products: AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty 2020 – Hands On!

Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Scientist Associate

The exam for this certification tests your ability to apply your knowledge of data science and machine learning to implement and run machine learning workloads on Azure. Azure Machine Learning Service is the primary machine learning product under Azure, and it’s extensively covered on this exam.

Here are some resources that you can use to study for the certification:

• The learning paths on the certification webpage cover the main topics on the exam. They take around 12 hours to complete: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/azure-data-scientist
• Also, this practice exam on a website called examtopics.com, might come in handy: https://www.examtopics.com/exams/microsoft/dp-100/

Google Certified Professional Data Engineer

The exam for this certification assesses your ability to:

• Design data processing systems
• build and operationalize data processing systems
• operationalize machine learning models
• ensure solution quality

Here are some resources that you can use to study for this exam:

• This practice test is provided by Google, and it contains around 30 practice questions. I’ll provide a link to it below: https://cloud.google.com/certification/practice-exam/data-engineer
• Additionally, this class on Coursera is offered by Google Cloud, and it covers Data Engineering, Big Data, and Machine Learning on the Google Cloud platform: Data Engineering, Big Data, and Machine Learning on GCP Specialization

Vendor-Neutral Certifications

Certified Analytics Professional (CAP)

The Certified Analytics Professional (CAP) exam tests you on concepts such as:

• Statistics
• Analytics Processes
• Optimization Techniques
• Simulation Types
• Machine Learning
• Economic Analysis

This is also a certification that I have.

Here are some resources that you can use to study for this exam:

• The official website for the CAP exam has a handbook and study guide for it: https://www.certifiedanalytics.org/
• This book on Amazon has practice questions that are similar to the questions on the real exam: Exam Preparation Guide for the Certified Analytics Professional Exam – Rajan Gupta
• This glossary contains most of the terminology on the CAP exam: https://analyticsexplained.com/analytics-glossary/

Data Science Council of America (DASCA) Senior Data Scientist (SDS)

The Senior Data Scientist certification is offered by the Data Science Council of America.

The exam for this certification tests you on the following subjects:

• Machine Learning
• Big Data
• Statistics
• Data Structures

An exam preparation guide is available on the main page for this certification.

• https://www.dasca.org/data-science-certifications/senior-data-scientist

There is also a Principal Data Scientist option that is available for higher experienced Data Scientists.

Choosing a Data Science Certification

Studying for a certification usually requires a sizable time commitment, so here are some things you should consider when choosing a certification:

• How relevant is it to the types of jobs and companies you will apply to in the future?
• How popular and recognized is it?
• Is it more focused on skills or theory?
• Is it vendor-specific or vendor-neutral?

Data Science Certification Trends

Here are three ways to determine the popularity and market demand for a certification before pursuing it.

Google Trends is a great way to assess the trends of vendors associated with certifications. For example, AWS is considerably more popular in Google Trends than other cloud companies worldwide. And Azure’s popularity is growing at an incredibly fast rate.

You can use LinkedIn to search for the mentions of certification names in LinkedIn profiles. When you search for “AWS Certified Machine Learning” on LinkedIn, there are over 50,00 results. This may indicate a high market acceptance of this certification. Within reason, you can also message people and ask them questions about certifications as well.

You can use Indeed to search for mentions of certification or vendor names in job postings. Doing this helps you determine the market demand for a certification.