Last updated: · Dataset: 1,787 UK job adverts, July 2026
In May, a reel on Instagram told viewers that five free certifications "are changing how employers recruit", and that anyone who took them "will be putting themselves ahead of other job candidates". It has been liked about 174,000 times. Going by its hashtags it was made for people in New Zealand and Australia. It turned up in a UK feed anyway, which is where we saw it.
So we checked. We searched 1,787 UK job adverts from July for Google's career certificates, HubSpot, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning and 13 other online course providers. One advert asked for one, and it listed the certificate under desirable.
HubSpot, the software, is named in 9 of 56 marketing adverts. A HubSpot certificate is named in one.
What turned up
Four adverts mentioned any of the 17 course providers. Three of those came from one employer, HBS Group, which offers LinkedIn Learning to its staff in a warehouse advert and two sales adverts. That is a perk of the job, something you get once you start. Nobody is asked to arrive with it.
The fourth was a marketing executive role at Gillman & Soame, which lists HubSpot knowledge or a HubSpot certificate as desirable. No advert named a Google career certificate. None named Coursera.
Adverts name the software
Courses like these teach a piece of software, or a skill built on one, so we counted the software as well, in the jobs those courses are sold for. HubSpot was named in 9 of 56 marketing adverts, and Google Ads or pay-per-click advertising in 12. In AI and data roles, Python came up in 56 of 80 adverts and AWS or Azure in 44, while a cloud certification appeared in 4. Excel was in 46 of 144 administrator adverts.
So the course may well be worth your evenings. The advert wants to know whether you can use the tool. A certificate is one way to say so. A line about something you did with it says the same thing in the advert's own words.
What adverts do ask for
Two in three of the 1,787 named no licence, qualification, course or certificate on our list at all. Where one did appear, it usually belonged to the job:
- NMC registration in 25 of 33 nurse adverts
- an accountancy qualification (AAT, ACCA, CIMA or ACA) in 37 of 51 accounts and finance adverts
- a forklift licence in 39 of 87 warehouse adverts
- a DBS check in 75 of 116 care and support worker adverts
Paid certifications do matter in a few jobs. PRINCE2 appears in 12 of 60 project manager adverts, and PMP or APM in 7. Across every advert, the two most common were a DBS check, in 224, and a driving licence, in 212. A degree came up in 76, or 4.3%. Our larger study of degree requirements, on a different job board, found 6%.
Before you pay for anything
Several of these the employer pays for. Of the 224 adverts that mention a DBS check, at least 70 say the employer pays or that it is free. Of the 45 that mention an NVQ, 23 say you can work towards it, that it is funded, or that it is only preferred. For forklift licences it is 22 of 52, saying the licence is not essential or that training is given. We only counted wording right next to the mention, so the real numbers are higher.
What adverts can't tell us
An advert is written before anyone applies. It cannot show whether a shortlister, holding two similar CVs, picks the one with a Google certificate on it. For someone changing career with no experience in the field, a certificate may be the only evidence they have, and it may well help. We have no data on that.
The reel names its five certifications only in the video, so we tested the kind of course it recommends, not its exact list. And this is one job board in one month. Reed lists more office and agency jobs than NHS Jobs or a school's own website, so health and schools are thin here.
If you've done one of these courses
Put it under training, on one line, with the date. Next to it, say what you did with the tool: the campaign you ran, or the spreadsheet your team still uses. That line answers the question the advert actually asks.
If you are deciding where to spend your time, read ten adverts for the job you want before you start a course, and count what they name. In warehouse work it is a forklift licence. In care it is a DBS check, and at least 31% of the adverts that mention one say the employer pays for it. Every job we measured, with every credential its adverts name, is on our certificates by job page.
Methodology and limitations
1,787 UK job adverts from the Reed jobs API, which returns each advert's full text, collected on 17 and 28 July 2026. We used one board only. Reposts of the same advert were counted once, 16 jobs outside the UK were dropped, employer names that posted the same advert text were counted as one employer, and no employer supplied more than five adverts to any one job.
A credential counts when its name appears anywhere in the advert. The online course list covered Google's career and Digital Garage certificates, HubSpot Academy, Coursera, edX, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, FutureLearn, Microsoft Learn, IBM SkillsBuild, Skills Bootcamps, Salesforce Trailhead, Meta Blueprint, Semrush Academy, OpenLearn, Codecademy, freeCodeCamp and Elements of AI. Every phrase pattern, and the rules that place each advert in a job, are published on the certificates by job page.
Limits. These are mentions, not requirements: an advert offering to pay for a licence counts the same as one demanding it. A phrase list misses credentials it does not name. Adverts show what employers write, not who they hire. Our editorial standards explain how we check figures and correct mistakes.
