The 8 Best Online Data Engineering Courses (2024 Reviews & Rankings)

Data engineering is a field that is growing rapidly as more and more businesses are looking to harness the power of data. As a result, there is an increasing demand for skilled data engineers.

The best thing about learning data engineering is that resources are just a click away. You can learn everything you need to know about data engineering online. Taking online courses to learn data engineering offers a multitude of benefits that can propel your career forward in today’s data-centric landscape, including convenience, affordability, and access to a vast array of resources, including video lectures, interactive assignments, real-world projects, and peer interactions.

I’ve reviewed and ranked the best online data engineering classes based on key factors, including cost, duration, difficulty, instructor credentials, student review, and whether they offer a certification  (click here to learn about our entire Editorial Process & Methodology for product reviews).

What are the Best Data Engineering Courses Online?

Here are our picks for the top data engineering classes you can take online in 2024…

1. Data Engineering for Beginners with Python and SQL (Udemy)

Price

Regularly $19.99 (often goes on sale)

Duration

This course includes 2.5 hours on-demand video with 37 coding exercises This certificated data engineering course includes all the basics of Python and SQL. It takes a deep dive into each basic function in Python including strings, tuples, loops, sets, Pandas, and more. The SQL and databases part of this course is 30 minutes long but packed with all that you need to know about SQL basics. The curriculum is designed for beginners, taking you from knowing nothing about Python and coding to writing short pieces of code. The exercises in this course are aimed to help you learn and implement the concepts taught during the lectures. While this course wouldn’t make you a data pro, it will give you all the fundamental skills and Python and SQL know-how you need to proceed to advanced-level courses.

What You Will Learn

• Python Fundamentals including variables, data types, and operators.
• How to run SQL Queries
• Working with JSON and CSV data
• Data Cleaning and Transformation
• Creating and managing databases and tables
• Introduction to Postman
• Understanding API basics
• Testing RESTful APIs
• Working on short exercises to build your competency

2. Data Engineering Essentials using SQL, Python, and PySpark (Udemy)

Price

Regularly $99.99 (often goes on sale)

Duration

This course has 56 hours of on-demand video. This expert-level course will teach you everything you must know about Python and SQL on your way of becoming a data engineer. The curriculum is well-designed, keeping in mind the industry’s demand for data engineering. So, it skills you up, ready for the professional world. Because this is an advanced level program, a CS or IT degree or prior IT experience is highly recommended. The best part about this course is that it is organized to almost an effortless level. You don’t have to navigate through the 56-hour videos as everything is chunked down to five 8-minute lectures on each topic. So, revisiting lectures while you’re doing exercises won’t be a problem.

What You Will Learn

• SQL and Python essentials for Data Engineering
• Database Essentials for Data Engineering using Postgres such as creating tables, and indexes, running SQL Queries, using important pre-defined functions, etc.
• Data Engineering using Spark Dataframe APIs (PySpark) using Databricks.
• Writing high-quality Spark SQL queries.
• Ability to build Data Engineering Pipelines using Spark leveraging Python as a Programming Language and using different file formats.
• Setup Hadoop and Spark Cluster on GCP using Dataproc
• Understanding Complete Spark Application Development Life Cycle to build Spark Applications using Pyspark.

3. Data Engineering – ETL, Web Scraping, Big Data, SQL, Power BI (Udemy)

Price

Regularly $44.99 (often goes on sale)

Duration

The entire course is based on 12.5 hours of on-demand videos. This beginner-level course focuses on studying ETL, which basically is a data pipeline used to gather data from multiple sources or formats and shift them to different data stores. It also covers skills such as SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT). The course is based on 134 lectures which have 5-10 min long videos on average. The short duration means that you can squeeze them into your schedule without any hassle and still complete the course in less than a couple of days. It also has a certificate of completion and 11 downloadable resources which you can access forever!

What You Will Learn

• How to install Visual Studio and SQL server data tools
• How to create a new SQL Server Integration Services Project
• How to implement ETL Process and testing SSIS Package
• Performing different database operations
• How to use Power BI for Data Modelling
• Using Power BI for cleaning and transforming data
• Studying the concepts of Big Data
• How to use web scraping for extracting data

4. Data Structures and Algorithms Nanodegree Program (Udacity)

Price

This course is available at a monthly cost of $249 or $846 for 4-month access.

Duration

The estimated duration of this course is 4 months, with a pace of 10 hours per week. This course is a nanodegree program which means that you can take up a skill-based educational program, along with a credential confirming your expertise. It has 80+ practice problems that help you understand data structures and algorithms better and also polish your skills. This course aims to teach you data structures and algorithms, along with how to deal with the problems associated with them. These two topics are a key part of any data engineering job, so enrolling in this course will help you get a good insight into the field. The curriculum touches upon a number of areas, including Python. The best part about this course is that it offers career services, such as access to Github Portfolio Review and LinkedIn Profile optimization; meaning that you will be well prepared for a career the data industry after completing this course. After completing this data engineering course, you’ll have the knowledge and skills to evaluate and assess different data structures and algorithms for any open-ended problem and find practical solutions.

What You Will Learn

• Revision of Python skills
• How data structures are used to store data
• How to manipulate data structures
• Determining the efficiency of data structures
• How to deal with open-ended problems
• How to implement algorithms using recursion
• Modifying algorithms for different interview problems
• Working around different types of advanced algorithms, such as brute-forced greedy algorithms, graph algorithms, etc.
• Working on real-world projects

5. Become a Data Engineer Nanodegree Program (Udacity)

Price

This course is available for $249 per month or $846 for 4-month access.

Duration

This course takes about 5 months to complete, with roughly 5-10 hours per week. This course focuses on designing data models and takes the learning a step further as it’s aimed at those with intermediate experience in the field. This data engineering class is taught by industry professionals so gaining real-world knowledge and expertise is guaranteed by the end of this course. It requires some prior knowledge of Python and SQL so if you’re well-versed in them already, this course will be the perfect fit for you. This course will make you proficient in several areas such as data modeling, spark, data lakes, data pipelines, etc.

What You Will Learn

• What are data warehouses and how to work around them
• Understanding data infrastructure
• Building cloud-based data warehouses
• How to work with massive datasets with the help of Spark
• How to use Apache Airflow to monitor data pipelines
• Tracking data lineage
• Building a portfolio
• How to build relational and no SQL data models
• Completing a capstone project

6. Introduction to Data Engineering (Coursera)

Price

Free to audit (optional paid upgrades available)

Duration

You get 3 options to complete this course:

• 1 month: 20+ hours/week
• 3 months: 15 hours/week
• 6 months: 8 hours/week

If you’re just starting out and have no idea about how data engineering works, you might want to take a look at this course because it promises to introduce all the core concepts, along with explaining the needful tools. It also briefly touches upon the data engineering ecosystem and its components. Studying this topic is highly beneficial because it prepares you for different career paths related to data engineering. The best part about this course is that it has hands-on labs which help you in creating an IBM Cloud Lite account. It also is linked to multiple programs which you can direct to after completing this course, meaning that the learning never stops and you keep on progressing!

What You Will Learn

• Basic skills required for data engineering
• An in-depth study of the lifecycle of data engineering
• Role of data scientists and data analysts in the data ecosystem
• Understanding data engineering technologies
• How to summarize different concepts
• Role of data engineers
• How to use big data processing tools
• Performance monitoring
• What are security, governance, and compliance

7. Data Engineer with Python (Datacamp)

Price

Get started free, full access with plans starting at $13/month

Duration

The total duration of this course sums up to 73 hours. Love working with Python? This course is for you! In this course, you will learn many things along with constantly improving your proficiency in Python. The course has a total of 21 lectures, each being a couple of hours long and taught by different instructors; meaning that if you don’t like a teacher, you’d only have to put up with him/her for a short time, until the next lecture comes in. The teaching methodologies primarily focus on making your programming languages as stronger as ever, so that you have a whole set of skills and tools up your sleeve which help you navigate your way easily, even after the course has ended. These languages include Shell, SQL, and Scala; mostly used for creating pipelines and building databases. If you already have a fundamental knowledge of Python and SQL, this course can be a great place to learn their advanced levels!

What You Will Learn

• How to add Cloud and Big data tools to your data engineering toolkit
• Configuring schedules
• How to run pipelines
• Understanding scripting and process skills
• How to wrangle data
• How to acquire data from systems such as CSV, files, APIs, etc.
• How to write codes and make them execute quickly
• Unix Command Line
• How to write unit tests

8. Professional Certificate in Data Engineering (edX)

Price

$1,076.40 for full access

Duration

This course has a total duration of 1 year and 2 months, with an estimated 3-4 hours per week. This expert-level program has about 12 courses and as you may have garnered from its title, it takes things to an advanced level and gears you up for the professional world. The curriculum is tailored to take you right from the basics to become a master in the field. The program is self-paced which means that you can pursue a full-fledge professional certification without having to give up on your current commitments. The extensive knowledge and practical experience gained from this data engineering course are going to help you get job-ready, and also enable you to constantly upgrade your portfolio. The best part is that you don’t need to have any prior knowledge for this course, which means that this can be just the right way for you to become an aspiring data engineer.

What You Will Learn

• Cloud-based relational databases
• Python, Bash, and SQL
• NoSQL database basics
• Hadoop and Spark basics
• How to process Big Data with Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark
• Bash, Airflow, and Kafka
• How to implement all the learnings in a capstone project

See our edX review to learn more.

A Final Word

As data continues to become more central to the operation of businesses and organizations, the demand for data engineers is only going to increase. Learning data engineering is a great way to ensure that you will always be in demand.

Have any questions about our guide to the best online data engineering courses? Share them by commenting below.