IICTI Certified Frontend Developer

Holders demonstrate that they can apply and evaluate frontend architecture, rendering strategies and meta-frameworks, web performance engineering and Core Web Vitals, state management, data fetching and caching architecture and advanced accessibility engineering and WCAG 2.2 conformance, plus 7 further areas, in realistic professional scenarios, as defined in the AQSCERT scheme for Frontend Developer.

Who it is for: Professionals working, or preparing to work, in software development roles.

1. 01Frontend architecture, rendering strategies and meta-frameworks4% of the exam

   • Architect frontend applications by selecting rendering and composition strategies matched to product and performance requirements.
   • Scope: CSR, SSR, SSG, ISR, streaming and partial hydration, islands and resumability, React Server Components, Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Astro, edge rendering and micro-frontends (Module Federation).
2. 02Web performance engineering and Core Web Vitals12% of the exam

   • Diagnose field and lab performance problems and design optimisations that measurably improve Core Web Vitals.
   • Scope: LCP, INP and CLS, critical rendering path, resource hints and priorities, code splitting, image and font optimisation, main-thread profiling (Chrome DevTools, Lighthouse, WebPageTest), RUM and performance budgets.
3. 03State management, data fetching and caching architecture10% of the exam

   • Design state and data-fetching architectures that stay consistent, performant and maintainable at scale.
   • Scope: Server vs client state, TanStack Query, SWR, Redux Toolkit, signals, Zustand, normalised caches, optimistic updates, real-time sync (WebSockets, SSE), offline-first and CRDT-based collaboration.
4. 04Advanced accessibility engineering and WCAG 2.2 conformance16% of the exam

   • Evaluate interfaces for accessibility conformance and design inclusive components that meet WCAG 2.2 AA.
   • Scope: WCAG 2.2 AA, WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices, accessible names and focus management, screen reader testing (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver), automated and manual audits (axe), EN 301 549 and European Accessibility Act obligations.
5. 05Design systems and scalable component engineering4% of the exam

   • Lead the design and governance of a design system that scales across teams and platforms.
   • Scope: Design tokens (W3C DTCG), headless and compound component patterns, theming and dark mode, Storybook, visual regression, API stability and versioning, governance and adoption across product teams.
6. 06Modern CSS architecture and layout13% of the exam

   • Design maintainable CSS architectures that leverage modern layout and cascade features without specificity debt.
   • Scope: Cascade layers, container queries, :has(), subgrid, logical properties, CSS custom properties, view transitions, CSS-in-JS vs zero-runtime and utility-first trade-offs (Tailwind, vanilla-extract), responsive and intrinsic design.
7. 07TypeScript at scale and frontend code quality13% of the exam

   • Design type-safe, modular codebases that enforce contracts between frontend and backend.
   • Scope: Advanced type system features (generics, conditional and mapped types, type narrowing), strict configurations, schema validation (Zod), monorepos (Turborepo, Nx), linting and architectural boundaries.
8. 08Frontend testing strategy and quality engineering8% of the exam

   • Design a frontend testing strategy that balances confidence, speed and maintenance cost.
   • Scope: Testing trophy, unit and component tests (Vitest, Testing Library), contract tests and MSW, end-to-end testing (Playwright), visual and accessibility regression, flakiness reduction and test data management.
9. 09Browser security for frontend applications8% of the exam

   • Evaluate frontend attack surface and design browser-enforced defences against client-side threats.
   • Scope: XSS and DOM-based sinks, Trusted Types, Content Security Policy, CORS, cookie attributes and SameSite, clickjacking, third-party script and supply-chain risk, Subresource Integrity, secure token storage.
10. 10Build tooling, delivery pipelines and frontend observability8% of the exam

    • Design build and delivery pipelines that ship fast, observable and safely reversible frontend releases.
    • Scope: Vite, esbuild, Rspack and Turbopack, bundle analysis, CDN and edge caching, feature flags and progressive delivery, source maps, error and session monitoring (Sentry, OpenTelemetry web), privacy-aware analytics.
11. 11Internationalisation, PWA and cross-platform frontend4% of the exam

    • Evaluate cross-platform and offline requirements and design globally ready, resilient frontend experiences.
    • Scope: i18n and l10n (ICU MessageFormat, RTL, Intl APIs), service workers and PWA capabilities, Web Workers and WebAssembly, cross-platform approaches (React Native, Capacitor) and progressive enhancement.

Question types

Single choice 100%

Delivery

Online (remote proctored), Test centre, On-site (corporate)

Retakes

Up to three attempts within any 12-month period. A 14-day waiting period applies after a first unsuccessful attempt and 30 days after a second. Each retake requires a new booking and fee. Retakes draw a different randomised form from the question bank.

Provisional cut score — psychometric validation is required before live delivery. Blueprint v1.0.

1. 1

   Register

   Create a free account and start the programme.

2. 2

   Practice

   Online practice test (coming soon).

3. 3

   Training

   Optional

   Online course or classroom — or skip it.

4. 4

   Certification

   Independent exam and certification decision.

Training is optional and does not by itself confer certification. Find a training partner