Santander and Coursera offer 100,000 free places on AI, data and leadership courses amid labour market transformation
Beneficiaries will have access to 80 online Coursera-certified courses for 12 months.
The programme provides access to flexible, quality training to boost employability amid growing demand for digital and other job skills.
Madrid, 3 September 2026.
Banco Santander and Coursera's Santander | Skills for Work programme has opened 50,000 further places on its online courses for people who wish to learn about artificial intelligence, data analysis, leadership, marketing, innovation, and other areas. These places add to the 50,000 released in August.
This initiative is open to anyone over the age of 18 in 12 designated countries. They don’t have to be a customer of the bank or have a university degree. Registration is on the Santander Open Academy website.
This programme comes just as the fast adoption of artificial intelligence and digitalization are increasing the need to learn new job skills. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, by 2030 59% of the global workforce will require critical upskilling or reskilling to stay competitive. The report also highlights the skills gaps and lack of talent that companies in several regions across the world have identified.
"In an ever-changing labour market, lifelong learning is key for people to take on new skills and adapt to future opportunities", said Anthony Salcito, VP and General Manager of Enterprise at Coursera. “Alongside Banco Santander, we want to bolster access to flexible, quality training that enables thousands of people to learn the most in-demand skills, obtain official certificates and become more employable, regardless of their background”.
“According to our Tomorrow’s skills report, 81% of the people surveyed feel the need to continue broadening their skill set, though cost and a lack of time remain the biggest barriers. If we want lifelong learning to shift from an aim to reality, we have to remove those barriers, which is exactly what we’re striving for with Coursera", said Victoria Zuasti, Global Head of Programmes and Content at Santander Universities, Banco Santander.
The catalogue combines short courses of 1-2 hours with longer programmes for those who wish to delve deeper into specific subjects.
Beneficiaries can complete as many courses as they want and adapt them to their needs and availability. They will receive an official Coursera certificate at the end of each one.
With this latest release, Banco Santander and Coursera are strengthening their partnership to make high-quality training accessible to a wider audience and to help professionals from a range of backgrounds pick up the skills they need to meet the demands of a constantly changing labour market.
About Coursera
Coursera was launched in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller with a mission to provide universal access to world-class education. Coursera partners with leading university and companies to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including courses, specializations, professional certificates, and degrees. Coursera’s platform innovations — including AI-powered guides and personalized functions like Role Play* and Course Builder* and role-based solutions like Skill Tracks* — enable instructors, partners and companies to deliver scalable, personalized and verified learning. Institutions all over the world use Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, students and citizens in such high-demand areas as generative AI (GenAI), data science, technology, and business, while learners globally turn to Coursera to master the skills necessary to advance their careers. Coursera is a Delaware public benefit corporation and a certified B Corp. Recently, Coursera teamed up with Udemy to create one of the world’s most complete skills development platforms. Together, Coursera’s and Udemy’s platforms reach over 300 million students and 12,000 businesses the world over.
Banco Santander’s commitment to education, employment and entrepreneurship
Banco Santander has been a pioneering stalwart of education, employability and entrepreneurship for 30 years, standing out among the world's financial institutions. It has deployed over €2.5 billion and supported more than 8.3 million people and businesses through agreements with nearly 1,000 universities www.santander.com/universidades).
Its global learning and development platform, Santander Open Academy, offers fully subsidized courses, free high-quality learning content and scholarships at top universities and institutions to boost people’s job skills and employability. Beneficiaries will get free access for a year to a selection of over 80 courses designed by universities and experts that home in on the most in-demand skills in today's market. Leadership, innovation and data-driven decision-making, marketing, artificial intelligence and languages will be some of the main topics that these courses — which will also include practical exercises — will cover.