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AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate

AWS
RANK #43 / 100 INVEST DEMAND 88 2026-Q3 DATA
$564,082
Top of band · USD
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Official registration on AWS's site.

Now see where you stand

Your benchmark against real contributors — the median beside top-of-band, plus stacking uplift and vintage decay.

What the verdict means

INVESTAppreciating — hold it and stack an AI-adjacent cert
DEMAND 88Relative hiring demand for AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate this quarter — join free to see it.

The analyst note

The read

AWS's newest data credential, launched in 2024. It took over the territory of the retired Data Analytics Specialty. Data engineering is the hardest layer of the AI stack to automate, and AWS now has a current cert that covers it.

Who holds it

Data engineers building on Glue, Redshift, Kinesis and Lake Formation — pipeline construction, data quality, lakehouse operations. Their employers are enterprises that have committed to AWS.

The case for the verdict

Every AI initiative is a data engineering project before it is anything else, and this cert sits right on that demand. Pair it with the ML Engineer Associate and you have the full AI-build profile.

The risk

The caveat is its youth. There's little salary history behind it, and AWS may still rework the syllabus. The figure is an estimate until more data lands.

The benchmark check

Are you being paid what you deserve?

Show me what I'm worth

Where it sits

Top half of the CertBueno Top 100.

This certification pays in line with the rest of the Top 100.

Vendor

One of 11 AWS certifications in the Top 100 — ranked 8th among them.

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