Pearson & Anthropic expand Claude certification programme

Pearson has partnered with Anthropic to expand the Claude Certification Program, adding three new role-based certifications for people using Claude in business settings.

The programme will use Pearson's assessment and credentialing system to deliver supervised, identity-verified exams for Anthropic's certification tracks.

The expansion brings the total number of Claude credentials to four. The new certifications are Claude Certified Associate: Foundations, Claude Certified Developer: Foundations, and Claude Certified Architect: Professional. The existing Claude Certified Architect: Foundations will remain in place.

The credentials are intended to cover the main roles involved in deploying Anthropic's AI tools in large organisations. They range from non-technical staff working on Claude-related projects to engineers building applications with the Claude API and architects overseeing integration, governance, and evaluation.

Each route starts with a foundation-level exam and can lead to a professional-level certification. Successful candidates receive a digital badge through Credly by Pearson.

Growing demand

The move comes as Anthropic seeks to build a larger trained partner base around Claude. More than 36,000 consultants across more than 1,300 organisations have been certified since the programme launched in March, and more than 400,000 people have completed Claude training through its partner learning platform this year.

The training and certification effort is part of a broader push to strengthen Anthropic's position with consulting firms and enterprise services providers. The company launched the Claude Partner Network in March and later added a services track aimed at helping corporate buyers identify firms that can deploy Claude in their operations.

Certification status is also tied to standing within that network. Partner tiering combines the number of certified practitioners with deployed customers and public customer references.

Partner commitments

Several large consulting and technology services groups have already committed to certifying staff at scale. PwC plans to certify 30,000 professionals, while Capgemini and DXC have each committed to 20,000 certifications.

Deloitte and KPMG will each certify 15,000 professionals. Cognizant, Infosys, and TCS have each committed to 10,000 certifications, and UST plans to certify 20,000 people worldwide across roles including architects, engineers, consultants, and industry specialists.

The programme is intended to give enterprise customers a clearer way to assess whether a partner has staff with verified skills, rather than simply course attendance. Anthropic said subject matter experts, including members of its Applied AI team, designed the exams to reflect real-world tasks.

Pearson's role focuses on exam delivery and verification. Exams are administered through Pearson Professional Assessments, and candidates must confirm their identity before taking a supervised test.

Anthropic argues this matters because the number of certified practitioners can influence procurement and partner selection decisions. In that context, it is positioning proctored testing as a way to support claims of competence through a more formal assessment process.

Steve Corfield, Head of Global Business Development and Partnerships at Anthropic, outlined the company's view of the market shift.

"The companies that pull ahead over the next twelve months will be the ones with enough skilled people to put Claude to work on their hardest problems. Every major technology shift has been carried by a trained, trusted workforce, and AI is no different. That's what we're building with our partners, and it's why the world's largest firms are certifying their people by the tens of thousands," Corfield said.

Pearson said the partnership reflects rising demand for formal measurement of AI-related skills as businesses move from experimentation to wider operational use. The group has been expanding its work in professional assessment and workforce learning, and the Anthropic agreement places it within one of the fastest-growing areas of enterprise technology training.

Vishaal Cupta, President of Enterprise Learning and Skills at Pearson, said: "AI is moving faster than most people's ability to build the skills to use it confidently, and that gap is exactly what verified assessment is built to close. Anthropic has built the first proctored certification among AI labs that uses the same trusted infrastructure for skills, credentials, and verified outcomes that Pearson uses across professional licensure. This is another example that shows why Anthropic is a trusted AI partner for businesses globally."