Forgive me I know there is plenty of resources out there but I do find it somewhat of a minefield where to begin, country specific and is it worth it. I've been working as a sysadmin for about 5 years now and I'm in my mid 30's. I've always had a passion for computers, studied some basic software development back in education but ultimately went a different route for the while career wise. Until I've found myself working my way up in the IT world, enjoying it but I feel like I'm against a brick wall and want to open some other doors.

A little overview of what I do, we are mainly windows server based, Cisco networking, Azure AD. I do a little bit of everything and if I'm honest when I first started I had so much to learn. Where now I feel I know a little bit of everything but not enough to know each area I deal with inside out. We mainly do hosting, but I've also got a little passion for the security side of things as well, I just find it fascinating.

So my big question is, where do I go from here, being UK based. Do I go and try and gain some certifications, if so what is recognized in the UK? Is there area's that you've expanded your knowledge on which has opened up so many avenues either career wise or just making your workflow much more efficient. Would you also see it beneficial to have a home environment set up to play with and test theories and concepts in the safe realms outside a live environment.

Honestly any advice would be most welcome, where it be course recommendations, books, online learning platforms or area's to learn first, or simply your experiences.

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Thank you