£310m London education company acquires US based digital credential specialist

London based learning company Pearson PLC today has announced its acquisition of New York headquartered Credly, the market leader in digital credentials and certifications for the workforce.

The acquisition of Credly, in which Pearson already had a 20 per cent stake, expands its current presence in the workforce skills sector, bringing together workforce analytics, learning, assessment, and credentialing services to meet the needs of learners and employers in a rapidly changing global economy.

Credly offers an “easy-to-use platform” for organisations, companies, educational institutions, and learners to award trusted digital credentials that verify an individual’s skills and help connect them with the right opportunities.

The company’s talent mobility solutions help businesses recruit, engage and develop their workforce, with a skills-based approach to talent management that operates at enterprise scale.

More than 2000 organisations use Credly and since its inception, the company has issued over 50 million credentials to 25 million people, making it the world’s largest professional credentialing business.

The acquisition comes at a time of increasing demand for digital credentials to recognise skills and certifications in a global talent market valued at $400bn (£298bn).

Andy Bird, chief executive of Pearson, said: “The Credly acquisition is another important step in accelerating our strategy in the workforce skills market and in building connectivity across the entire Pearson portfolio. The growing skills gap is putting enormous pressure on the labour market, making verified credentials more essential than ever before.”

“Credly complements our other recent acquisition, Faethm, to address the full learner journey, enabling us to work with employers and employees to identify skills needs, provide learning to address those needs and offer trusted credentialing to prove proficiency.”

Jonathan Finkelstein, founder and CEO of Credly, added: “This exciting move combines Credly’s expertise in the skills economy with the global scale, learning expertise and financial strength of Pearson.

“Joining forces accelerates the realisation of our vision to build a world where every person can achieve their full potential based on their verified skills and where organisations can make better human capital decisions and build more equitable workforces using trusted information about what people know and can do.”