Umbraco 8 to 9 bridging courses and the new certification structure

Getting certified in Umbraco 9 and beyond

Written by: Rheannon Lefever

If you're looking forward to Umbraco 8 to 9 bridging courses and/or have caught wind of our 25% transition offer on full courses [EXPIRED], you’ll know that a new certification structure is already in place. Now that bridging courses are live, let’s review what you need to know about the new structure, plus how you can upskill or secure your current title!

Jump around in this blog post:

A refresher on the new certification structure
Now available: Bridging courses
Why this Umbraco Master takes bridging
Fill in the gaps: Limited-time 25% off transition offer
Why this developer team is upskilling

We recently updated the certification structure in order to create a clearer pathway for Umbraco developers to get certified, and to ensure your title corresponds to a defined set of skills in Umbraco. Now, we want to make sure you have the resources you need to future-proof those skills in an timely, cost-effective way.

Major changes to be aware of

👉 You'll need to pass all courses and a certification exam to achieve your title (including currently certified developers).

👉 To gain one of the 3 official Certification titles, you must take the required courses shown in this structure. Currently certified developers must upgrade by August 1, 2023 to secure your Professional, Expert, or Master title by upskilling in all relevant courses and passing the certification tests. The bridging courses and/or the transition offer can help you fill any gaps OR you can use it to take Umbraco training and get strong new skills!

👉 Once you upgrade your certification to the new structure, your title will be valid for 24 months (spanning roughly 4 Umbraco majors).

👉 Before your certification runs out after 24 months, you can regain your title simply by passing the required certification test. This makes it a lot more cost-effective and faster to retain your title in the future.

If you’re currently certified but don’t upgrade your certification to the new structure by August 1, 2023, you will have to retake all full courses to earn the title.

Why get certified in Umbraco 9?

Umbraco 9 is fully .NET Core, a big jump from .NET 4.7.2. The underlying code is cleaner, runs faster, and encourages smarter development 🎉 If you want to make sure your Umbraco project is up and running on the latest version and you know all of the best practices for the future of Umbraco development, an upgraded certification is the way to go.

We’re so excited to see new Community members upgrading your skills every month and to usher in a new wave of Umbraco Certified developers.

Feeling unsure what it all means? We can always be reached at training@umbraco.com to advise you personally on what’s needed to pursue or secure your Umbraco title.

Umbraco 8 to 9 bridging courses

👉 Bridging courses. Only people who have taken the relevant four courses in Umbraco 8 are eligible to take on-demand, half-day bridging courses for Umbraco 9 (€200)

Umbraco, MVC, and Visual Studio
Umbraco Application Integration
Security in Umbraco
Umbraco Load Balancing

Not all training courses require bridging. For these four, there have been major changes to things like the controllers, services, and workflows that we use between versions 8 and 9. Bridging makes sure you're aware of those changes and how to work with them in the new version.

If you attended MVC in version 8 and you want to be certified in version 9, you can either attend a whole day's MVC course again, or you can attend a condensed, on-demand bridging course that only goes over what has changed between the versions.

Deadline: Bridging is available through March 31, 2023

Book bridging now

Please fill out the form at the bottom of our Umbraco 8 to 9 bridging page.

What about Fundamentals?

If you're certified in Fundamentals version 8, you'll be an Umbraco Certified Professional in version 9 after passing the Umbraco Professional certification test. There’s no need to attend a whole new Fundamentals course.

How to take the certification test:

If you attended Fundamentals in Umbraco 8 after March 1, 2021, write our friendly trainers for free access.

If you attended before March 1, 2021, write your friendly SUITS to take the test for €200.

What about bundles?

Since developers could combine different courses for certification (pick-and-mix) in the past, it’s difficult for us to create a bundle that would be relevant for the largest number of certified developers. As a result, we are not currently offering a bridging bundle; that said, the transition offer allows you to catch up on full courses on a budget.

Check our Umbraco 8 to 9 bridging page for more information and a full FAQ on bridging.

💭 MVP Poornima Nayar’s thoughts on bridging

Freelance .NET Developer Poornima Nayar is a big fan of the Load Balancing course with trainer Jeavon, who she considers “one of the best people I can learn from on the topic.”

“I did the Load Balancing in Umbraco course in February, the first of its kind in Umbraco 9,” Poornima says.

“It's one of those topics where there is nothing called ‘learnt enough,’ also the reason I’ve gone back for the course again and again.

"It’s so thorough and gives you a good idea of how to run Umbraco in Azure. I particularly loved the step-by-step approach where we first learn the basics and then finish with an actual site running on Azure. It’s very hands-on, as always, and exactly what I wanted.”

Why has she chosen to upskill in Umbraco 9?

“Umbraco 9 is based on .NET whereas the previous versions were .NET Framework-based. This is quite a big shift in itself. There are some big differences between Umbraco 8 and Umbraco 9 and while it’s always great to figure out things on your own, these courses provide you a recommended way of doing it. This is important as Umbraco being a very flexible platform, you can easily go on a tangent, reinvent wheels and start getting things wrong!

“I hope to do the bridging courses and complete more courses to retain my Master certification.”

Limited-time offer to take 25% off training

Here’s how we’re making certification easier and more cost-efficient than ever in 2022.

👉 Transition offer. All developers interested in training can take advantage of a 25% discount on full courses that count towards certification (i.e. Content Management and Accessibility courses are not eligible at this time).

Since all courses are now €1.150, that means some pretty big cost savings when you book training now.

Deadline: Book by Friday, April 29, 2022 at 18:00 CET / 2pm EDT

This offer has expired. Thanks for your interest!

💡 Why the Council of the European Union is upskilling

Simone Chiaretta, an Azure and Umbraco specialist at the Council of the European Union, says the External Communication team he advises has just passed their two final courses and upskilled to Umbraco Experts.

His teams have also completed certification training on version 7 (in 2016) and version 8 (in 2020), and the opportunity was “highly appreciated by the whole team, especially the Security course.” Simone says his teams apply their high-level Umbraco knowledge to their projects daily.

The team that works on public-facing sites plans to apply their updated Expert knowledge in Umbraco 9 soon.

“The move from Umbraco version 8 to version 9 is pretty big, and since we have a few important sites still on version 7 to migrate to version 9 during 2022, and a few new team members, we wanted to give everyone the best training possible to perform the job and start on the right foot,” Simone shares.

How will you update your Umbraco skills in 2022?

The 25% offer has now expired, but you can still take bridging through March 31, 2023.

Let us know you're interested in bridging