Generative AI and Professional Tech Certification Courses Continue to Dominate Emerging Skills Demand for Professionals Globally

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 17, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Udemy (Nasdaq: UDMY), a company dedicated to improving lives through learning, today released its Q2 2023 Global Workplace Learning Index, a quarterly report highlighting skills that are growing in demand, as professionals play a crucial role in enabling their companies to maintain their edge and future-proof their workforce.

Analyzing data from nearly 15,000 Udemy Business customers across the globe, the Index reveals the technical and professional power or “soft” skills that saw the biggest increase in course consumption (i.e., minutes spent learning) during Q2 when compared to Q1 2023. Udemy is uniquely equipped to provide data that helps companies understand learning trends and identify the skills their employees should learn, enabling them to grow while achieving critical outcomes for the business.

“We are in the midst of a shift to a skills-based economy where organizations are identifying the skills available within their teams and addressing any gaps,” said Caoimhe Carlos, Vice President of Global Customer Success at Udemy. “Organizations are partnering with Udemy to determine which skills are emerging and strategically upskill their teams — a win-win for both companies and professionals looking to stay ahead in today’s increasingly competitive climate.”

The Index highlighted several emerging themes in professional learning, including:

• Continued spike in certification preparation course consumption. Businesses and professionals continue to value industry certifications. Traditional cloud certifications, such as AWS, have experienced significant growth over time, while demand for other certification preparation topics emerged, such as the Salesforce Certified Associate (130% increase globally), Certified Kubernetes Administrator or CKA (32% increase in Canada), and ISTQB Certified Tester Foundation Level or CTFL (27% increase in Germany). More than 10 million learners have enrolled in IT Certification courses on Udemy in the past 12 months, demonstrating the breadth and depth of corporate demand.
• Generative AI remains a sought-after skill across industries. Increasingly, the growth of AI is extending into non-technical fields such as marketing, HR, sales and project management. With growth in topics such as ChatGPT (386% increase globally), Generative AI (278%) and Prompt Engineering (190%), companies are diving deeper into role-specific uses of generative AI to tap its transformative potential – improving SEO, streamlining talent recruiting, improving customer support responsiveness, and creating personalized marketing emails. Overall, across the Udemy marketplace and business learner landscape, Udemy has already seen over 1.5 million learners enroll in ChatGPT-related courses.
• There is a huge demand for project management skills by professionals across roles and industries. Project planning courses showed a global increase of 79% and project management was a top skill in the healthcare industry with 7% growth in demand. Project Management Institute (PMI) PMBOK Guide was the top in-demand skill for government workers with a 62% increase. The PMI Talent Gap Report underscores the global need for 25 million new project professionals and a total of 2.3 million project managers by 2030.
• ESG and climate change courses surge in demand. With 113% quarter-over-quarter growth in demand, corporations and the global workforce are demonstrating an increased interest and prioritization of climate change knowledge and ESG best practices as businesses work to address and avoid the negative consequences associated with climate change.

The Q2 Index also identified a number of emerging skills to watch, such as:

• Increasing focus on local language skills to drive global collaboration. Korean language courses experienced an 87% overall increase in consumption globally. English language remained a top in-demand skill in China with a 114% increase, and in France with a 22% increase.
• Semiconductor and chip manufacturing courses are experiencing remarkable global growth. VHDL (Very High-Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language) courses saw an unprecedented surge of 3,576% over the first quarter. The demand for FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) courses in the U.S. has also skyrocketed by 2,838%, following increased funding and focus on semiconductor production through the CHIPS Act of 2022. Globally, FPGA courses witnessed a significant 1,256% increase in demand, reflecting the contentious race in semiconductor production worldwide.

"As the pace of global innovation and change accelerates, professionals are driven to learn new skills and adapt to shifting business priorities," said Scott Rogers, Senior Vice President of Supply Strategy at Udemy. “Major industry certifications, such as AWS, continue to dominate overall demand, but we are also seeing surging demand for Salesforce, Google Cloud and Kubernetes. This aligns with the roadmap of capabilities Udemy is bringing to market, as exhibited by our latest badging announcement, which supports the skills validation and certification trend.”

To learn more about country-specific learning trends, visit: research.udemy.com. To partner with Udemy Business to upskill for the future, visit: business.udemy.com.

Methodology
The Udemy Workplace Learning Index uses data from thousands of Udemy Business customers worldwide. Location data is based on the country associated with the company. The skills data compares the consumption of courses in the Udemy Business collection from Q1 2023 to Q2 2023. Courses are associated with one or more topics, with a maximum of five topics per course. The trending skills that you see in the report are based on these topics. If a course covers multiple topics, consumption minutes are divided equally across all topics associated with the course.

About Udemy
Udemy (Nasdaq: UDMY) improves lives through learning by providing flexible, effective skill development to empower organizations and individuals. The Udemy marketplace platform, with thousands of up-to-date courses in dozens of languages, offers the tools learners, instructors and enterprises need to achieve their goals and reach their full potential. Millions of people learn on the Udemy platform from real-world experts in topics ranging from programming and data science to leadership and team building. Udemy Business enables employers to offer on-demand learning for all employees, immersive learning for tech teams and cohort learning for leaders. Udemy Business customers include Fender^Ⓡ, Glassdoor, On24, The World Bank and Volkswagen. Udemy is headquartered in San Francisco with hubs in Ankara and Istanbul, Türkiye; Austin, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Dublin, Ireland; Melbourne, Australia; and New Delhi, India.

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Risha Tyagi
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press@udemy.com