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Must-Have Google Professional Certificates on Coursera in 2026
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items Google Career Certificates have gone from cheaper alternative to a degree to the baseline credential hiring managers scan for in 2026 — $49 per month, three to six months end-to-end, no prior experience assumed for the entry-level tracks. The shape o...
Sections
6
Start Here: Set the Baseline
Data & Analytics Certificates
Tech & IT Certificates
Design & Product Certificates
Industry Specializations
Next Step: Google Cloud Professional Certificates
Start Here: Set the Baseline
Three items to handle before picking a certificate. Coursera Plus makes the math work if you're planning more than one program — which covers most career-pivot readers. Google AI Essentials runs under ten hours and establishes the AI literacy every c...
$399/year for 4,000+ courses, 240+ Specializations, and every Google Career Certificate on this list. The annual upfront beats monthly-per-program math the moment you're doing more than one — which applies to almost everyone reading career-certificat...
Coursera Plus | Unlimited Access to 10,000+ Online Courses
Google's prompting-focused specialization — five steps to clear AI instructions, under ten hours end-to-end, no prior experience required. Covers craft-level prompting with Gemini, responsible-use patterns, and the applied AI literacy every Career Ce...
Google Prompting Essentials
Google's cross-certificate add-on — the job-search companion that applies across every certificate below. Resume drafting with Gemini, interview prep with NotebookLM, application tracking. Included free with any Career Certificate and worth running s...
Accelerate Your Job Search with AI
Data & Analytics Certificates
Google's data track, from entry-level analyst work through cloud data analytics into Python and machine learning. Google Data Analytics is the foundational program — the certificate that took the role from "specialized degree required" to "job-ready ...
The certificate that made "data analyst without a degree" a real hiring category. Spreadsheets, SQL, R, and Tableau — the toolkit a working analyst uses daily. Still the most-completed Google program by a wide margin, and the benchmark the rest are m...
Google Data Analytics
The sequel. Picks up where Data Analytics stops: Python, statistics, regression, machine learning. Google's own recommended path for analyst-to-data-scientist transitions, and the certificate that justifies applying for mid-level analytics roles rath...
Google Advanced Data Analytics
Google Cloud's cloud-native data analytics certificate, designed for beginners heading into cloud data roles. BigQuery, Looker, SQL, and Dataplex across five courses in about three months. The cloud-native bridge between Google Data Analytics and Adv...
Google Cloud Data Analytics
Tech & IT Certificates
The IT track is Google's oldest and deepest. IT Support is the entry point — no prior experience assumed, around 287,000 open US jobs at a $70K median entry-level salary. IT Automation with Python stacks on top, turning IT Support grads into scripter...
The original Google Career Certificate, and still the cleanest entry into tech with no background. Networking, operating systems, system administration, security basics — the skills that come up on day one of a help-desk job. Around 287,000 open US r...
Google IT Support
The stack on top of IT Support. Python, Git, Linux, troubleshooting automation — the scripting layer that turns fixing one machine into managing many. The step that takes an IT technician to IT engineer.
Google IT Automation with Python
Google's fastest-growing certificate by recent enrollment, for obvious reasons — security stays on every hiring forecast through the end of the decade. Threat modeling, incident response, SIEM tools, Python for security, Linux basics. Released 2023, ...
Google Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity specialized into Google Cloud Platform. The right pick for jobs at GCP-based companies, or as a deep cut stacked on top of the general Cybersecurity certificate. Deeper focus, tighter scope.
Google Cloud Cybersecurity
Design & Product Certificates
Two certificates for the non-engineering side of tech. UX Design partners with Figma on the full research-to-prototype loop — user research, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing in the working tool design teams ship with. Project Management pa...
The certificate that took UX Design from "bootcamp required" to "Google-backed credential." User research, wireframing, prototyping in Figma, usability testing — the full design cycle from research to handoff. The Figma partnership means you learn in...
Google UX Design
Agile, Scrum, and traditional waterfall PM, with PMI consulting on the curriculum. One of the most completed Google programs globally — which makes sense, because PM is one of the few tech-adjacent roles that promotes on credential plus experience ra...
Google Project Management
Industry Specializations
Four university-built specializations that stack on top of a Google Career Certificate. Co-designed with Columbia Engineering, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, and Illinois Gies to extend a completed Google certificate into a specific industry: construction,...
Industry Specialization built by University of Illinois Gies College of Business as a post-certificate layer for Google Data Analytics grads targeting finance roles. Corporate finance, valuation, financial statement analysis. Three courses, takes one...
Financial Analysis - Skills for Success
ohns Hopkins-built Industry Specialization that converts a Google IT Support certificate into healthcare-sector readiness. EHR systems, HIPAA-adjacent compliance, clinical workflow IT, medical device support — the details that get asked in hospital-I...
Healthcare IT Support
Michigan-built Industry Specialization for Google Data Analytics grads targeting government, NGO, and public-sector roles. Adds R and tidyverse to the Python-and-SQL Google track, because public-sector analytics runs heavily on R. Narrow lane, high-c...
Data Analytics in the Public Sector with R
Columbia Engineering-built Industry Specialization that stacks onto the Google Project Management certificate for construction-sector roles. Scheduling, cost estimation, BIM, construction finance — the toolkit a PM needs to move from general project ...
Construction Management
Next Step: Google Cloud Professional Certificates
Google Cloud's Professional Certificates are where the Career Certificates path leads for anyone staying in the Google ecosystem. Different Google unit, different program family — published by Google Cloud, aimed at intermediate practitioners with si...
The associate-level entry into Google Cloud certification. Compute Engine, Kubernetes, Cloud Storage, IAM — the practitioner toolkit for running GCP infrastructure. The natural next credential for IT Support grads with six months of real cloud work b...
Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Cloud Engineer
The professional-level credential that Cloud Engineer leads to. Designing multi-region deployments, sizing infrastructure for scale, architecting for cost and security across the full GCP stack. Ranked among the highest-paying IT certifications in re...
Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Cloud Architect