Google Skills (formerly Google Cloud Skills Boost)

What it is

Google Skills is Google's learning platform, announced in October 2025 as the new home of Google Cloud Skills Boost, bringing Google Cloud, Google DeepMind and other Google training into one catalogue. For data engineers the useful parts are the hands-on labs, which give you a temporary Google Cloud project with real services, and the curated learning path for the Professional Data Engineer certification.

What it offers for data engineering

• The Professional Data Engineer Certification learning path (13 activities as of 2026-09): courses, labs and skill badges on designing data processing systems, building batch and streaming pipelines, and operating them.
• Labs on BigQuery (loading, partitioning, clustering, SQL), Dataflow (Apache Beam pipelines), Pub/Sub, Dataproc (managed Spark), Cloud Storage and the managed Airflow service.
• Skill badges that require you to complete a challenge lab without step-by-step instructions, which is a better test than a quiz.

Free versus paid

According to Google Skills Help as of 2026-09:

• The no-cost Starter subscription gives 35 credits a month for hands-on labs. Labs cost different numbers of credits depending on difficulty.
• The paid Pro subscription unlocks the whole catalogue, including all labs and learning paths.
• An annual premium subscription adds Google Cloud credits and a certification voucher, among other benefits.

Check the platform for current prices in your country. Google also runs no-cost programmes from time to time; announcements appear on the Google Cloud blog.

Why labs matter

A lab spins up a temporary project, so you can practise with real services without adding a card or worrying about a forgotten resource running up a bill. That makes it a safe first contact with Google Cloud before you build in your own account.

Is it worth your time?

Yes, if you chose Google Cloud. The labs are the fastest way to get hands-on with BigQuery, Dataflow and Pub/Sub, and the learning path maps directly onto the certification exam. The trap is clicking through lab instructions without understanding them: after each lab, rebuild the same thing in your own project from memory.

Common questions

Is it the same as Cloud Skills Boost? Yes, it is the renamed and expanded platform; older links to cloudskillsboost.google redirect to it.

Do I need it to pass the certification? No, but the official path and labs are the most direct preparation, next to real project experience.