Jun/26: Analysis - total professionals by cert
Jun/26: Analysis - total professionals by cert
Analysis of the Google Cloud Platform certification program.
How many GCP certified professionals are there, by cert, on 30/June/26?
Total number of GCP certificates
| Certification | Total | MoM | %MoM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 686299 | 6910 | 1.02% |
| Foundational | |||
| Cloud Digital Leader | 121705 | 667 | 0.55% |
| Generative AI Leader | 71343 | 2497 | 3.63% |
| Associate | |||
| Cloud Engineer | 197266 | 1092 | 0.56% |
| Data Practitioner | 8497 | 181 | 2.18% |
| Google Workspace Administrator | 5261 | 220 | 4.36% |
| Professional | |||
| Cloud Architect | 124327 | 761 | 0.62% |
| Data Engineer | 62681 | 496 | 0.80% |
| Cloud Developer | 16231 | 128 | 0.79% |
| Network Engineer | 10769 | 110 | 1.03% |
| Security Engineer | 17603 | 100 | 0.57% |
| DevOps Engineer | 18539 | 147 | 0.80% |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 20283 | 223 | 1.11% |
| Cloud Database Engineer | 9285 | 111 | 1.21% |
| Security Operations Engineer | 2509 | 177 | 7.59% |
Log-scale graph
Highlights
- Continued overall deceleration: Dropping from 7201 in May to 6910 in June, the overall volume falls nearly 60% from the January new-year peak.
- February was the peak for most technical certs: While the cert program peak was in Dec’25 and Jan’26, heavily driven by GAIL and ACE, Feb’26 was the localized peak for almost all specialized professional certs that started to decline in next months.
- ACE rebounds significantly: After a steady decline that bottomed out at 821 in May, the Associate Cloud Engineer bounced back strongly to 1092.
- Resurgence of core PCA and PDE credentials: Following an steep decline, both saw a noticeable uptick. PCA increased from 533 to 761, and PDE from 373 to 496, far above PMLE.
- PMLE loses momentum: PMLE has been one of the top professional certs, even surpassing PDE in May. However, this momentum reversed sharply in June with a drop from 422 to 223 new certs, nearly half.
- GAIL growth continues to cool down: While it remains the undisputed leader in absolute volume, it’s MoM growth continued to cool down - 5223, 2907, 2497 in the last 3 months.
- CDL dropped sharp: While the foundational ACE rebounded, the non-technical CDL declined from 920 to 667, -27% MoM.
- The AGWA growth streak ends: Despite overall portfolio deceleration, AGWA had a consecutive growth streak which broke on June, dropping to 220 new certs.
- PSOE accelerates the widening gap in security certs: The PSOE uptick from 145 to 177 new certs consolidates as the fastest-growing cert relative to its size. It also highlights the diverging momentum between the 2 security-focused certs: While the threat-response PSOE grew to 177, the infra-focused PCSE continued to decline to just 100 new certs.
- While the PSOE cert grew compared to last month, zooming over the last 6 months reveals that PSOE actually suffered one of the steepest drop-offs over this period.
- PCDOE has a high volatility: Compared to other certs following a relatively smooth curve, PCDOE has been highly erratic with spikes, drops and rebounds.
Analysis
- 6-month macro deceleration and the “wait and see” effect: The overall GCP cert program slowed down from the Dec’25 and Jan-Feb’26 peak. This initial growth was likely driven by peak genAI market hype, and as this normalizes, growth naturally cools down. More importantly, Google Cloud recently overhauled its major certs (like PCA and PDE) to focus on agentic AI announcements at Next’26 (Apr’26). This widespread drop in new test takers is likely related to candidates pausing their studies to wait for new exam versions and updated study materials to be released.
- June drop for PMLE: After bucking the cert trend and even overtaking the PDE in May, the PMLE lost momentum in June. This is perfectly aligned with the timeline of a scheduled massive exam guide overhaul that went live on 1st June’26, shifting heavily from traditional model training to include agentic AI ops in Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. Therefore, it’s highly probable that candidates avoided taking the exam in the early days of June, but waiting for new exam materials, experiences shared by other test takers, and having time to better prepare it. On the other hand, you could also make a case for the uptick in May to be attributed to test takers wanting to move forward their exams before the cut-off date.
- PSOE vs PCSE growth: This relative gap could be explained by this era of increasing cyber threads, where modern security has moved beyond setting up firewalls and perimeters (PCSE), to place a premium on operational platforms like Google SecOps and active threat hunting, detection, and incident response (PSOE).
Notes
- Project name changed from “GCP certified professionals analysis” to “GCP certified analysis”.
- Fixed references to PMLE - Professional Machine Learning Engineer, wrongly abbreviated before as “PCMLE”.