I wanted to share a bit about my ACP-120 (Jira Administrator for Cloud) review journey, which I passed in September 2025 👀
📚 How I prepared:
I spent around 1 month preparing. Most of my review sessions were after work, usually after dinner for about 2–3 hours each day.
During the day, I was already working as a Jira Admin full-time, so I treated my review time as a way to connect my hands-on experience with best practices and exam scenarios.
Nothing too fancy. I just focused on staying consistent and really understanding things instead of memorizing them.
💡 And honestly… I get why people say they don’t have time to review.
But for me, I realized I just had to make time.
That meant giving up some of my usual downtime like watching anime, Netflix, and even playing on my PlayStation 5, just to stay on track.
▶️ What helped me the most:
This YouTube series from The Jira Life helped me a lot:
👉Watch their ACP-120 series
It features @Rodney Nissen _Work Wranglers_ _TJL_ "The Jira Guy", @Alex Ortiz "Dr. Jira" and @Robert Wen_Cprime_ "King Bob". What I liked about it was that they were also preparing for the exam themselves, not just teaching the topics.
So instead of just going through lessons, you get:
- How they think through questions
- Real discussions and scenarios
- Practical tips and approaches
They also mentioned that group study really helps, and you can actually see that in their videos.
💡 In my case, I was doing self-review, so I treated their videos as my virtual study group.
It really felt like I wasn’t studying alone. I could follow their discussions, hear different perspectives, and understand how they break down the answers.
👉 I even played their videos in the background while doing my morning runs on weekends, just to stay consistent without adding extra study time.
⚠️ One important thing they highlighted:
They mentioned that team-managed projects is something you really need to focus on.
This is especially important if you’re coming from a Data Center background (ACP-100), since this topic isn’t really covered there.
📖 Other resources I used:
I used the Atlassian self-paced training to double-check that I wasn’t missing anything:
👉 Prepare for Jira Administration for Cloud
On top of that, I reviewed the Atlassian Jira Administration for Cloud Certification Prep Resources they’re pretty aligned with the actual exam:
👉 Jira Administration for Cloud Certification Prep Resources
💡 What I realized:
ACP-120 isn’t about memorizing answers.
It’s more about:
- Understanding why things are configured a certain way
- Knowing how different parts of Jira work together
- Applying that to real scenarios
💡 One key takeaway:
For me, ACP-120 felt easier compared to ACP-100, especially since I already had hands-on experience and was familiar with many of the core concepts.
💪 If you’re preparing:
- If you can, try group study
- If not, find ways to simulate it like watching videos or joining discussions.
- Stay consistent even with small daily sessions
- Focus more on understanding than memorizing
Curious to hear from others 👀
👉 Did you study solo or in a group for ACP-120? What worked for you?
