How to become an AWS Certified Solutions Architect in 2025

Amazon's proprietary cloud service, Amazon Web Services, also known as AWS, is an extremely popular cloud solution due to its security, capacity, and scalability.

One of the most in-demand roles related to this is the AWS Certified Solutions Architect, a lucrative profession with salaries upwards of £80,000. Demand for this profession is expected to grow annually until 2030, as companies adapt their networks into the age of AI.

Could this career be for you, and how can you upskill?

Here's how to become an AWS Certified Solutions Architect in 2025.

What is an AWS Solutions Architect?

Cloud Computing is a type of IT infrastructure that can revolutionise the way companies conduct business, making them more efficient, scalable, and secure.

An AWS Solutions Architect is a Cloud Computing expert who can assess which Amazon cloud solution works best for a given business goal, design, and implement it. 

AWS Solutions Architects communicate with various stakeholders to understand a company's pain points and design an Amazon solution to match their needs. They manage the application architecture, deployment, and optimisation of this chosen platform, ensuring the company stays up-to-date, and also contribute to a company's cloud strategy.

To become an AWS Solutions Architect, you need to be officially certified by Amazon AWS.

What does an AWS Solutions Architect do?

Job responsibilities may vary according to the industry and scale of the company you're working for; whether you work for your employer's IT department, an IT provider, a Cloud Computing company, or another business; you could also work as part of a larger team or be a solo maverick and even create your own department.

Typical job responsibilities include:

• Understanding your client's business objectives and creating cloud-based solutions to meet them
• Designing, building, and maintaining cloud environments and applications
• Transferring your client's systems into the cloud and digitising operations
• Keeping your client's cloud environments secure
• Staying up-to-date with cloud computing best practices and refining your client's hardware and software
• Communicating with varied stakeholders and teams to create a cyber-secure cloud culture

...and more. 

What makes a good AWS Solutions Architect?

As a company, Amazon AWS is hungry for innovation and change. 

This is a job for driven strategic thinkers who want to provide the best solution for their clients.

They need to understand coding, software development lifecycles, AWS facets such as CLI, APIs, CloudFormation templates, the AWS Billing Console, the AWS Management Console, and be confident communicators with keen attention to detail.

How can you become an AWS Solutions Architect in 2025?

This is a challenging and rewarding profession with training to match.

1. Achieve a strong foundation in IT

AWS is a complex platform, so the more IT experience you have, the more likely you are to be successful.

Many professionals who aspire to this career have a university degree in IT, Software Development, or Cloud Computing; in addition, AWS is not the first IT certification they have attempted.

If university is not an option for you, consider becoming an IT apprentice and learning the fundamentals of Cloud Computing and coding along the way.

At Firebrand, apprentices have the chance to achieve industry-recognised IT certifications during the course of their programme. For example, while taking the Level 3 Information Communications Technician (ICT) Apprenticeship, they can take the Cloud Essentials+ course by CompTIA as part of the programme. Find out more. 

2. Gain relevant professional experience

Whether you got your first IT-related job after uni or you rose through the ranks in a different way, your next step is to gain hands-on work experience that can help you specialise.

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect has two certifications, Associate (SAA-C03) and Professional (SAP-C02). Depending on your experience, you can achieve the Associate first and progress to the Professional, or attempt the Professional directly.

In order to take the Associate exam, also known as SAA-C03, you need to be familiar with Cloud Computing, Networking, and have working knowledge of distributed systems and multi-tier architectures. It's a complex examination; one or two years of related work experience will make this much easier for you.

3. Pass the official AWS exam

After you've gained a good foundation and enough work experience, now is the time to study the official AWS Solutions Architect curriculum, take the exam, and become AWS-certified.

The exam is quite difficult, so we recommend that you attempt the Associate one first.

At Firebrand, we specialise in getting people certified at twice the speed.

Our AWS Associate course takes only 4 days, and you can take both Associate and Professional courses together for 7 days in total.

You can take the official exam on the last day of the course and return to work certified.

4. Expand your CV

Once you've passed the exam, massive congratulations are in order! This is one of the most difficult and sought-after professional milestones today—you deserve the kudos.

It's a competitive sphere, so, depending on the industry you'd like to work in, you may wish to expand your skills.

Some suggestions:

• Look into coding. It's an indispensable skill regardless of the area of IT you're working in;
• Stay up-to-date with AWS Services, Cloud Computing, and major trends such as AI adoption;
• Expand your knowledge of AWS Services and Architecture: EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS, VPC;
• Expand your knowledge of Networking: TCP/IP, DNS, SSL/TLS, as well as AWS Route 53, CloudFront, Security Groups, NACLs;
• Interested in databases? Look into Database Management with Amazon RDS, DynamoDB, Redshift;
• Interested in Management? An IT Management MBA could help you get ahead.

Good luck! #BeAFirebrand

Get AWS certified with Firebrand

For the past 14 years in a row, we’ve been named one of the Top 20 IT Training Companies in the World.

We specialise in accelerated training that helps you become competent, confident, and certified fast.

Could one of our courses be right for you?

See all our AWS courses.