If you want to make big career or life changes in 2025, MoneyMagpie Editor and financial expert Vicky Parry reveals where to find some of the best free courses that could get you started
Making a decision to train for a new career can be daunting, especially if it requires a lot of education to get started.
You might not even know if you want to do the job, before laying out hundreds or even thousands of pounds on training that you find doesn’t work for you! That’s why the MoneyMagpie team are huge fans of using free introductory or level one courses to dip your toe in, learn the basics, and discover if your career change plans are right for you!
Reed free courses
That’s right, online job website Reed also offers a bunch of great free online courses. There are plenty of paid-for courses available too, but the free ones are ideal for career switchers or beginners. Most of the free courses are funded by the Adult Education Budget, which means participants must be over 19 years old and resident in England to take part.
You can take courses such as Level 3 Certificate Introducing Caring for Children and Young People, Level 2 Certificate in Preparing to Work in Adult Social Care, or a Level 3 Access to Higher Education Diploma (Nursing). There are also business administration courses, counselling skills certificates, nutrition, mental health, and medication management modules, and technology classes like a certificate in coding.
Coursera
Coursera has a wide range of business, creative, and career training modules and courses to take for free. There are also plenty of paid options, if you find something you enjoy doing! For example, you can take a short course online to learn how to build a free WordPress website – perfect if you’re planning to launch your own freelance or side business in 2025. Or, you can learn business analytics, coding such as Python, basic software skills like Excel, as well as more theoretical courses such as using creative thinking for success.
Alison
Alison is a well-regarded free online course site with a huge range of training types available. Many employers use Alison courses for staff onboarding, such as the HACCP Food Safety System course for people working in commercial kitchens.
You can also take courses such as safeguarding vulnerable adults if you want to work in social care, working at height safety training, and conflict resolution. You could try a new language, explore IT courses to learn about coding, cloud computing, or web development, or discover sales and marketing techniques and strategies.
Alison is a US-based course provider, but the majority of the free courses are suitable for people in the UK. You may find some, like the OSHA training, are not relevant due to different regulations in the UK, so if you want to take a health and safety or regulation-based course, make sure it’s for the UK.
The Open University
You read that correctly: the long-established Open University, where people can study for degrees at their own pace, also offers short courses for free online. Their OpenLearn courses are for everyone, and there’s something for beginners, intermediate, and advanced learners. Take courses in money and business, such as management accounting, data analysis, employment relations, and even a freelance career in the creative arts.
Other subject sections include Health, Sports and Psychology; Education and Development; Languages; Nature and Environment; Science, Maths, and Technology; Politics and Law, and Digital and Computing. You can also choose humanities subjects in History and the Arts, with courses such as creative writing, art history, and even an advanced module on Agatha Christie novels!
FutureLearn
FutureLearn is the final stop to check out when looking for an online course to kickstart your career change in 2025. Rather than offering courses themselves, it’s a hub that directs you to other courses, making it easy to find exactly what you need.
So, you’ll see courses run by the NHS, the Open University, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Coventry University, UCL, and tons of other professional courses. These are not paid courses, which is why it’s at the end of this list. However, it’s on the list for a good reason: their Unlimited Learning subscription (currently £35 a month or £20.83 a month on an annual subscription) gives you access to ALL of the courses.
This means you can learn from a wide range of institutions for a significantly reduced price. As the courses on offer are from accredited institutions so you could earn professional certificates at a massive discount.
Some of the brands and websites we mention may be, or may have been, a partner of MoneyMagpie.com. However, we only ever mention brands we believe in and trust, so it never influences who we prioritise and link to.
