Udemy Expands Certification and Badging Offerings with New Features for Skill Development

Udemy, a leading online skills marketplace and learning platform, is expanding its Badging and Certification preparation services to all learners through its Personal Plan subscription. The company also introduces new features for Udemy Business customers to enhance skill mastery and tracking.

Expansion of Certification Preparation

Responding to significant demand for IT certification, Udemy now extends its third-party certification preparation from Udemy Business to all professional learners via the Personal Plan. The platform has seen over 10 million enrollments in IT certification training courses in the past year. It now offers curated learning paths for certification exams from Amazon Web Services, Azure, CompTIA, and other providers. This expansion allows more learners to prepare for and achieve industry-recognised certifications.

Introducing Badge Management and Insights

Udemy Business users can now take advantage of the Badge Upload/Download feature, which creates a verified record of Open Badge achievements. This partnership with 1EdTech ensures organisations can authenticate employees’ skills through supported sources and verifiable metadata. Learners can also download or share their badges, showcasing their achievements within broader networks. Over 22,000 badges have been imported across more than 1,300 organisations.

The new Badge Insights dashboard provides a comprehensive summary of all employee badges and certifications. This tool offers organisations valuable insights into the skills within their teams and identifies areas for development. Employers can use this information to focus on critical learning objectives, validate skills, award performance, and improve retention.

Meeting the Need for Updated Skills

As technology advances rapidly, ensuring employees possess the necessary skills is crucial for maintaining competitiveness. A recent Udemy study highlighted that 84% of business customers plan to implement a skills-based infrastructure to align with business goals within the next year.

Greg Brown, President and CEO at Udemy, stated:

“GenAI is revolutionising industries and transforming the business landscape at an unprecedented pace and as a result, demonstrated skills have become the new currency of the workforce.

“Through partnerships with organisations including Native Computing Foundation, Docker, and ServiceNow, we are helping learners to acquire critical skills and earn certifications in key areas of technology supporting the digital transformation. Our badging and certification preparation capabilities are enabling organisations to support the development, acquisition, and validation of skills across their teams helping fuel both individual and company growth.”

Integrated Skills Framework

Udemy’s expanded badging and certification capabilities are part of its Integrated Skills Framework. This framework allows individuals to validate and demonstrate their skills and proficiency more rapidly. It enables organisations to evaluate professionals based on proven skill sets rather than traditional criteria such as work experience or academic degrees. Udemy also contributes to 1EdTech’s TrustEd Microcredential Coalition, helping to define industry standards for skills mastery and ensuring the quality and trustworthiness of digital credentials.

Curtiss Barnes, CEO at 1EdTech, emphasised the importance of digital credentials, stating:

“Digital credentials are valued signals of skills mastery to current and prospective employers. As the number of certification issuers grows, the industry needs to work together to elevate high-quality credential standards on a global scale.

“Udemy has been a trusted partner in not only defining these industry standards but elevating them to learners. Udemy’s certification to 1EdTech’s Open Badges v2.0 standard enables high-quality data-rich digital credentials that the learner can use to showcase their achievements across the widest range of credentialing platforms.”

Customer Demand and Feedback

Udemy has experienced strong customer demand. Ryan Jamieson, CTO at Calybre, highlighted the value of Udemy tools, stating:

 “At Calybre, we believe in investing for the future, especially in learning and development for our workforce. Data and AI consulting is at our core, making certifications of critical and evolving skills for our workforce essential.

“Udemy's Badging and Certification preparation help us monitor our team's progress and validate skills development through vital industry certifications, making it a key element of our consultant training and readiness as we work to close key skills gaps.”