There’s no doubt that cloud skills are in demand. Google Cloud skills are especially in high demand, with a 66.74% increase over the past year in job listings, which is why we rolled out four new certifications at the beginning of this year. So today we’re excited to announce that we are reaffirming our commitment to prepare millions of workers to thrive in a cloud-first world by launching the Google Cloud certification challenge, available in 25 countries (details at the bottom).

By signing up for the certification challenge, you’ll get access to a series of free learning resources on Qwiklabs and Coursera to sharpen your cloud architecture knowledge. You’ll also receive additional tips and resources to help prepare you for the Google Cloud Certified Associate Cloud Engineer or Professional Cloud Architect exam. If you successfully certify within 12 weeks of starting the certification challenge, we’ll send you a $100 Google Store voucher to redeem toward the product of your choice.

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Why get Google Cloud certified? Cloud certifications are a great way for you to demonstrate your skills to the larger IT market. Not only does it validate your cloud skills and experience to recruiters, it demonstrates your value to your current employer. Getting certified can open up opportunities to progress within your company and could help in the next review of your compensation package. For example, the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect certification debuted at number one on the top-paying certifications list in the 2019 Global Knowledge survey.