The RHCE exam, rebuilt around Ansible: writing and running playbooks, using roles and collections, managing variables and secrets, and automating RHEL administration at scale.
Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) — Ansible Automation is Red Hat's professional-level devops & sre certification, sat as exam EX294. The exam runs for 4 hours, with a pass mark of 210 / 300. It costs US$500 at the standard rate.
The published exam guide lists 7 sections but does not assign public weightings, so plan to cover each in similar depth rather than betting on one being dominant.
Confirm these details on the official Red Hat page before booking — vendors adjust format and pricing without notice.
Standard rate, before local taxes
The published exam guide for EX294, in the vendor's own order.
01Understand Core Components of Ansible
02Install and Configure an Ansible Control Node
03Configure Ansible Managed Nodes
04Script Administration Tasks
05Create and Use Ansible Playbooks
06Use Roles and Ansible Content Collections
07Automate Standard RHCSA Tasks
RHCSA is required to earn the RHCE credential.
Professional level — Advanced credentials covering design, scale and trade-off decisions.
EX294 is assessed through work performed on live systems rather than a standard multiple-choice paper. Use the weighted domains above as a lab checklist and practise each task in a realistic environment.
The syllabus breakdown above is the most useful study plan available either way: work through the domains in weight order.
EX294 is part of Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE), which requires 2 exams.
The exam is scheduled for 4 hours. Red Hat does not publish a fixed question count for this exam.
210 / 300. Confirm the current figure on the official exam page before booking, as vendors adjust cut scores when an exam form is refreshed.
The standard price is US$500. Local pricing, taxes and any retake policy vary by region, so check the official page for the figure that applies to you.
RHCSA is required to earn the RHCE credential.
The exam guide covers Understand Core Components of Ansible, Install and Configure an Ansible Control Node, Configure Ansible Managed Nodes, Script Administration Tasks and Create and Use Ansible Playbooks, plus 2 further domains. The full weighted breakdown is listed above.