Microsoft Professional Program is retiring. Explore our new role-based training and certifications

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Posted 15 Aug 2019 by Alex Payne, GM, Global Technical Learning at Microsoft Worldwide Learning

Three years ago, we launched the Microsoft Professional Program with one mission: to help you build the technical skills you need to succeed in emerging jobs.

Since then, we’ve heard from many of you about how you’ve applied your new skills to become more impactful in your current work and gained more recognition from your colleagues. We are also hearing that the bar is getting higher in terms of the technical skills required to thrive in an increasingly complex, cloud-based world. The importance of industry recognized certifications is also growing. Research tells us that:

  • Certified new hires reach full productivity sooner and find more opportunities for advancement.
  • Certified employees earn 15 percent more than those without certification.
  • Employees with certifications are nearly 20 percent more productive.

As the need for technical skilling increases, so does the need for us to make it simple for you to get started and to find the learning paths you need as you work toward certification. That’s why we’ve decided to take the best of the Microsoft Professional Program and apply it to a program where you can earn a technical certification when you complete your coursework. As we retire the Microsoft Professional Program (slated to end on December 31, 2019), the new destination becomes Microsoft Learn. It’s a free interactive way of learning that combines short step-by-step tutorials, browser-based interactive coding/scripting environments, and task-based achievements – designed to help prepare you for the certifications that will make you more successful.

We’re coming up on our one-year anniversary of announcing our move toward role-based training and certifications. And since that time we’ve released 23 new role-based certifications; and many more learning paths and modules launching regularly on Microsoft Learn. I’m excited about the future of technical skilling. You will continue to see us expand our technical training and certifications offerings, giving learners confidence that they’re on the path to real jobs and career growth.