If you were me...

What would you do now? Potentially I'm about to jump a few k in salary and will have a hundred quid or so each month to play with.

Now, I have no official Windows-related qualifications (I have a very indepth IBM AIX qualification but that's all and irrelevant to the work I do today).

Would you do a Microsoft course (MCSA/E), or would you attempt to follow another route? Should I look for a local place offering degrees and start with a BSc? HND?

Obviously, Microsoft is the most desirable and what people look for when people apply for jobs, but at the same time, it's also the most expensive. I just wondered if there was anything else out there that I could look at as an alternative...

There's more money in *nix certification than in MS ones. There's even more money in *nix/Windows intergration (ie, doing both routes).

Experience is valued much more highly than certification on its own. Too many employers have been burned by applicants with a bulging CV full of certs turn out unable to do the job.

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Originally Posted by Geoff

Experience is valued much more highly than certification on its own.

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I agree with this, as the saying goes .... What people can do is often more important than what they know, for knowledge is only useful if it is applied

... which is probably why, so far, I've managed to negotiate my way to a suitable salary (or so I think), despite being relatively 'untrained' to the naked eye...

I just think it might be nice to back up my experience with some certificates... rather than doing all the certs and not being able to apply them!

If you can find somewhere that does foundation degrees near you, you can mix vendor certificates and other formal courses. You dont even need to do the whole thing you may just do parts of it but you will have a recognised qualification from a University for each course. The courses are typically 1 day a month for 6 moths each and you would do 3 or 4 courses.

In your position with all the knowledge already, I would go for a degree first. You can leave the other courses for later and pass them with experience. Getting an MCP would just mean you are qualified to do your current job well with your experience, but you're already doing the job.