Free Data Analytics & Business Intelligence certifications
Excel, SQL, Power BI, statistics and turning data into decisions. 28 free tests from beginner to advanced, every question based on a published source, with a verifiable certificate you can add to LinkedIn.
Founder, Science of AppsWhat are the best free Data & BI certifications?
Science of Apps has 28 free Data Analytics & Business Intelligence certifications and skill tests: excel, SQL, Power BI, statistics and turning data into decisions. 8 beginner, 15 intermediate, 5 advanced — each a timed online test of original scenarios based on published standards, graded instantly, with a verifiable, LinkedIn-ready certificate.
Beginner Data & BI certifications
No experience needed: fundamentals and clear reasoning.
- 10 questions · 10 minSOA-DLIT
Data Literacy Certification
Tests the everyday ability to read, question and communicate with data — chart reading, averages and percentages, data sources, bias and drawing sound conclusions.
Difficulty: BeginnerFor Business professional, Manager, StudentTake the 10-minute test → - 10 questions · 10 minSOA-XLF
Microsoft Excel Fundamentals Certification
Tests core Excel skills — cell references, essential formulas, sorting and filtering, tables, basic charts, conditional formatting and PivotTables.
Difficulty: BeginnerFor Office administrator, Analyst, AccountantTake the 10-minute test → - 10 questions · 10 minSOA-SQL
SQL Fundamentals Certification
Tests core SQL — SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY, aggregates and GROUP BY, HAVING, joins, NULL handling and basic data modification.
Difficulty: BeginnerFor Data analyst, Business analyst, Junior developerTake the 10-minute test → - 10 questions · 10 minSOA-DVIZ
Data Visualization Fundamentals Certification
Tests how to choose and design clear charts — chart types, colour, labelling, decluttering, accessibility and avoiding misleading visuals.
Difficulty: BeginnerFor Data analyst, Designer, MarketerTake the 10-minute test → - 10 questions · 10 minSOA-GSH
Google Sheets for Professionals Certification
Tests Google Sheets for work — formulas, QUERY, ARRAYFORMULA, IMPORTRANGE, data validation, filters and pivot tables, sharing and permissions, and automation basics.
Difficulty: BeginnerFor Operations coordinator, Marketer, AnalystTake the 10-minute test → - 10 questions · 10 minSOA-BIF
Business Intelligence Fundamentals Certification
Tests BI basics — data warehouses, ETL/ELT, dimensional models, KPIs, self-service reporting, data freshness and choosing BI tools like Power BI, Tableau and Looker.
Difficulty: BeginnerFor BI analyst, Reporting analyst, Data analystTake the 10-minute test → - 10 questions · 10 minSOA-DST
Data Storytelling and Presentation Certification
Tests how to turn analysis into a story people act on — knowing the audience, the main message, narrative structure, chart choice, decluttering and presenting with confidence.
Difficulty: BeginnerFor Data analyst, Consultant, ManagerTake the 10-minute test → - 10 questions · 10 minSOA-DDDM
Data-Driven Decision-Making Test
Tests how to use data in decisions — framing the question, choosing metrics, weighing evidence and uncertainty, avoiding bias and acting when data is incomplete.
Difficulty: BeginnerFor Manager, Team lead, Business professionalTake the 10-minute test →
Intermediate Data & BI certifications
Assumes hands-on experience in the role.
- 15 questions · 15 minSOA-AXL
Advanced Excel and Formulas Certification
Tests advanced Excel — XLOOKUP and INDEX/MATCH, dynamic arrays such as FILTER and UNIQUE, LET and LAMBDA, error handling, Power Query and data modelling.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Financial analyst, Data analyst, Business analystTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-EBA
Excel for Business Analysis Certification
Tests Excel for real business questions — financial and sales analysis, scenario modelling, variance analysis, forecasting, sensitivity tables and presenting results clearly.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Business analyst, Financial analyst, FP&A analystTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-DCP
Data Cleaning and Preparation Certification
Tests how to clean and prepare data — missing values, duplicates, inconsistent formats, outliers, joining sources, documentation and building repeatable pipelines.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Data analyst, Data engineer, Research analystTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-PBI
Power BI Analyst Assessment
Tests Power BI — Power Query, star schema data models, relationships, DAX measures and CALCULATE, visuals, row-level security and publishing in the Power BI service.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Power BI developer, BI analyst, Data analystTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-TAB
Tableau Data Visualization Certification
Tests Tableau — dimensions and measures, discrete vs continuous fields, calculated fields, LOD expressions, filters and their order, dashboards and performance.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Tableau developer, BI analyst, Data analystTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-PDA
Python for Data Analysis Certification
Tests data analysis in Python — pandas DataFrames, filtering, groupby, merging, handling missing data, time series, visualisation and reproducible notebooks.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Data analyst, Data scientist, Research analystTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-STAT
Statistics for Data Analysts Certification
Tests the statistics analysts use — descriptive statistics, distributions, sampling, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, p-values, regression and common pitfalls.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Data analyst, Data scientist, Research analystTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-BAC
Business Analyst Certification
Tests core business analysis — stakeholder analysis, requirements elicitation and documentation, process modelling, data analysis, solution evaluation and BABOK-aligned practice.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Business analyst, Systems analyst, Product ownerTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-DKPI
Dashboard Design and KPI Selection Certification
Tests how to design dashboards people use — choosing KPIs and leading indicators, layout and hierarchy, context and targets, interactivity and avoiding vanity metrics.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor BI developer, Data analyst, Product managerTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-CMA
Customer and Marketing Analytics Certification
Tests customer and marketing analytics — segmentation, cohorts, CLV and CAC, attribution, funnel analysis, campaign measurement and privacy-aware tracking with GA4.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Marketing analyst, Growth analyst, CRM analystTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-DQG
Data Quality and Governance Certification
Tests data quality and governance — quality dimensions, ownership and stewardship, metadata and catalogues, lineage, access control, privacy and data policies.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Data governance analyst, Data steward, Data engineerTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-DEF
Data Engineering Fundamentals Certification
Tests data engineering basics — batch and streaming pipelines, ETL/ELT, data modelling, orchestration, file formats, data quality tests and cloud warehouses.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Data engineer, Analytics engineer, Back-end engineerTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-MLF
Machine Learning Fundamentals Certification
Tests ML basics — supervised vs unsupervised learning, features and labels, train/validation/test splits, overfitting, common algorithms and when ML is the right tool.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Data scientist, Machine learning engineer, Data analystTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-SRA
Statistical Reasoning Assessment
Tests everyday statistical reasoning — base rates, sampling bias, regression to the mean, Simpson's paradox, misleading graphs and judging the strength of evidence.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Analyst, Manager, ResearcherTake the 15-minute test → - 15 questions · 15 minSOA-DSCI
Decision Science & Optimization Certification
Tests decision science — decision analysis under uncertainty with expected value, decision trees, Bayes and the value of information, optimisation and model-based decisions, and behavioural biases and how to debias decisions.
Difficulty: IntermediateFor Decision scientist, Data scientist, Business analystTake the 15-minute test →
Advanced Data & BI certifications
Assumes years in the role or deep specialist knowledge.
- ProfessionalSOA-PA
Product Analytics Certification
Certifies that you can turn product data into decisions — metrics and instrumentation, funnels and conversion, retention and cohorts, and A/B testing and statistics.
Difficulty: AdvancedFor Product Analyst, Product Manager, Growth AnalystEarn Certified Product Analyst → - 20 questions · 20 minSOA-ASQL
Advanced SQL Assessment
Tests advanced SQL — window functions, CTEs, subqueries, complex joins, deduplication, date logic, query performance and indexing.
Difficulty: AdvancedFor Senior data analyst, Analytics engineer, Data engineerTake the 20-minute test → - 20 questions · 20 minSOA-ABT
A/B Testing and Experimentation Certification
Tests rigorous online experimentation — hypotheses, randomisation, sample size and power, significance, guardrails, peeking, SRM, novelty effects and interpreting results.
Difficulty: AdvancedFor Data scientist, Product analyst, Growth marketerTake the 20-minute test → - 20 questions · 20 minSOA-MLE
AI and Machine Learning Model Evaluation Certification
Tests how to evaluate ML models — precision, recall, F1, ROC-AUC, calibration, cross-validation, regression metrics, fairness slices and production monitoring.
Difficulty: AdvancedFor Data scientist, ML engineer, AI researcherTake the 20-minute test → - 20 questions · 20 minSOA-ORES
Operations Research Certification
Tests operations research — linear programming and sensitivity analysis, integer, network and transportation models, queueing and simulation, and decision analysis and inventory models, with worked calculations.
Difficulty: AdvancedFor Operations research analyst, Supply chain analyst, Data scientistTake the 20-minute test →
More free certification categories
- AI & GenAI36 tests
- Software & web dev33 tests
- Marketing, SEO & AEO39 tests
- UX/UI & design42 tests
- Product & project35 tests
- Security, cloud & DevOps50 tests
- Sales & support24 tests
- HR & people14 tests
- Finance & operations69 tests
- Communication & leadership30 tests
- Languages60 tests
- Healthcare, education & more64 tests
- Test prep & academics31 tests
- Language exam prep15 tests
- Office & productivity13 tests
- Engineering & safety30 tests
- Hospitality & retail8 tests
Frequently asked questions
What are the best free Data & BI certifications in 2026?
Science of Apps offers 28 free Data Analytics & Business Intelligence certifications and skill tests, including Product Analytics Certification, Data Literacy Certification, Microsoft Excel Fundamentals Certification, Advanced Excel and Formulas Certification, Excel for Business Analysis Certification, SQL Fundamentals Certification. Each is a timed online test of original scenarios based on published standards, graded instantly, with a founder-signed certificate and a credential ID employers can verify.
Which Data & BI certification should I take first?
Start with a Beginner test such as Data Literacy Certification, Microsoft Excel Fundamentals Certification, SQL Fundamentals Certification, then move to Intermediate and Advanced ones such as Product Analytics Certification, Advanced SQL Assessment. Every test page shows its difficulty, the skills it covers and a sample question.
Are these Data & BI certifications really free?
Yes. Taking a test, receiving the certificate as a PDF and by email, adding it to LinkedIn and having it verified are all free — no course, payment or sign-up.
How long does each Data & BI test take?
Quick skill tests are 10, 15 or 20 questions (Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced) at a minute each; full role certifications are 20 scenarios in 30 minutes. Every answer is explained with its source when you finish, and a retake draws questions you haven't seen.
How much do Science of Apps certifications cost?
Nothing. There is no fee to take a test, to receive the certificate, to have it emailed or to verify it, and no sign-up.
How are the tests graded?
On our server, not in your browser. The answers never reach the page until you submit, so a certificate can only be earned by passing. Each certificate gets a unique credential ID stored by Science of Apps.
What happens if I don't pass?
You see your score for each area and every question with the correct answer and why, with the published source behind it. You can retake after 30 minutes, and the retake draws questions you haven't seen yet.
Do the certificates expire?
No. Every certificate is dated, so it always shows when you passed. Retake a test any time for a newer date or a higher score.
Can I add the certificate to LinkedIn?
Yes. After you pass, Add to LinkedIn opens the Licenses & certifications form with the certificate name, Science of Apps as the issuer, the issue date, your credential ID and the verification link filled in. You can also download it as a PDF or PNG, and it's emailed to you as a PDF.
How can an employer verify my certificate?
Every certificate has a credential ID and a QR code. Scanning it, or entering the ID at scienceofapps.com/certification/verify/, shows the holder's name, the certification, the score and the issue date from our records.
Are these accredited qualifications?
No. They are Science of Apps' own assessments of applied skill. They aren't issued by a university or standards body, and they work best alongside a portfolio that shows the skills in real work.