Amazon shared a one-year update on Future Ready 2030, its $2.5 billion commitment to expand access to education and skills training and help prepare at least 50 million people for the future of work. In the year since launch, Amazon has committed $1 billion of the fund to Career Choice, opened new credential programs and pathways into in-demand careers, and expanded tools like AWS Skill Builder and Machine Learning University.

The following is a blog post written by Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology at Amazon.

Key takeaways

• Amazon is investing in education programs to prepare 50 million people for the future of work.
• Future Ready 2030 empowers both Amazon employees and the broader workforce to thrive in a rapidly changing labor market.
• $1 billion will go toward Amazon’s Career Choice program, helping employees advance their education.

When we launched an upskilling commitment in 2019, we set what felt like an ambitious goal: help 100,000 employees gain new skills by 2025. I’m proud to say that in that time, we helped more than 700,000 employees globally—including 425,000 in the U.S. and 275,000 outside the U.S.—exceeding our target seven times over.

This success reinforces something we’ve always believed and embraced: When you remove barriers to education, you create pathways that help people build the careers they want. And as the demand for learning continues to grow, we need to think even bigger about preparing people for what’s coming next.

That’s why in October 2025 we introduced Future Ready 2030—a $2.5 billion commitment to expand access to education and skills training and help prepare at least 50 million people for the future of work. This will benefit Amazon employees, students, and many others, because we believe that in a rapidly changing economy, people deserve the tools to adapt, build a career, and thrive.

In June 2026, we announced that Career Choice would receive $1 billion from the fund. We expanded the program to Japan and Mexico this year, bringing it to 16 countries. In the U.S., all hourly employees can participate, as can salaried employees at Level 4 and above.

Career Choice is designed to empower employees to learn new skills for career success at Amazon or elsewhere, providing access to prepaid education and training opportunities that prepare them for in-demand careers. More than 500,000 employees globally have participated in Career Choice since 2012. Employees are also diving into new certificate programs that support in-demand professions, like manufacturing and chip engineering and—the technology at the heart of Amazon’s supply chain—and emerging industries created by Amazon’s various innovations, including drone delivery.

The $1 billion commitment means Amazon plans to upskill another 500,000 employees globally. The program will evolve across all 16 countries where it operates to focus on areas of job growth: cybersecurity, software development, logistics, renewable energy, and mechatronics. Courses are designed to offer flexibility around varying work schedules.

Career Choice is also introducing professional credential programs in partnership with Stanford Online, Purdue University, Western Governors University, and the SANS Technology Institute. These programs are designed for employees who already hold a bachelor's degree and want to pivot into a high-growth industry, including clean energy, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, education, and healthcare. Most programs take 18 months or less to complete, giving employees a faster pathway to a new career without stepping away from work.

Building skills across every stage of work

Our expanded commitment includes Amazon employees and reaches beyond our walls because we know that Amazon is part of the fabric of communities across America. New opportunities are emerging that demand creativity, adaptability, and lifelong learning. People want to build new skills to help them seize those opportunities, and we want to help empower them on that journey.

Future Ready 2030 helps address this by connecting education directly to real employment outcomes across every stage of the career journey. We’re inspiring K-12 students through programs like Amazon Future Engineer, which has provided 1.1 million students with more than 17 million hours of free computer science and robotics education and awarded 200 U.S. high school seniors scholarships worth up to $40,000 each in the past year.

We’re opening doors for early-career talent through AWS Educate programs that prepare students for cloud-based jobs, and apprenticeships like our Mechatronics and Robotics program, where graduates can earn up to 58% more per year than typical starting wages for entry-level roles.

Beyond Career Choice, we also continue to upskill current employees through initiatives like AWS Skill Builder, which offers more than 900 free courses—including more than 220 AI and machine learning resources—and helps employees earn globally recognized AWS certifications. Amazon also offers free microcredentials, including one focused on agentic AI, giving employees a way to build verified skills in emerging fields. Machine Learning University (MLU) trains employees to build AI solutions for Amazon's unique business challenges, and Amazon covers the cost of one AWS AI or Machine Learning certification exam a year for every employee.

Our commitment to the workforce of the future

Whether someone dreams of working at Amazon, works here now, or has moved on to their next chapter, our goal is the same: helping them have access to the education and training needed to thrive in whatever comes next.

The future of work is being written right now and, with Future Ready 2030, we're committed to ensuring that story includes opportunities for everyone willing to learn and grow.