Training, exams and certification
Training, exams and certification
There are two different ways to check whether someone really holds an ITIL or PRINCE2 certification, and they answer different questions. One is a public list people choose to appear on. The other is a verification service that needs the certificate number. Knowing which one you need saves a lot of time.
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The Successful Candidates Register is an opt-in public listing of people who have passed a PeopleCert exam. It was an AXELOS service; since the portfolio moved to PeopleCert it lives on peoplecert.org, and the old AXELOS address now redirects there. Anyone can search it, free, without an account.
You search it with four fields, and you can use them in combination:
| Name | First name of the candidate, as registered with PeopleCert |
|---|---|
| Last name | Family name, again as registered — not as it appears on a CV or a badge |
| Certification | A dropdown limited to the schemes below |
| Candidate number | The candidate's PeopleCert number, if you have it. The most precise of the four. |
The dropdown covers the former AXELOS portfolio, and only that:
AgileSHIFT · ITIL · M_o_R · MoP · MoV · MSP · P3M3 · P3O · PRINCE2 · PRINCE2 Agile · RESILIA · soft skills
That list is worth reading carefully, because a great deal of what PeopleCert now sells is not on it, and neither is anything from another certification body. If the credential you are checking is TOGAF, DevOps Institute, IASSC Lean Six Sigma, APMG or PECB, this register will never find it — not because the person is lying, but because those schemes were never part of it.
DevOps Foundation, DevSecOps, SRE and the rest of the DevOps Institute portfolio are now delivered by PeopleCert, but they are not in the register’s dropdown, so a search by name will not find them. For a certificate issued by PeopleCert, use the Certificate Verification Service: it needs only the certificate number, in the format GR100000000AA. For a certificate issued by DevOps Institute before the move to PeopleCert, ask the candidate for the digital badge that came with it.
Absence from the register proves nothing. Appearing on it is a choice the candidate makes. Plenty of certified people never opt in, and plenty simply never saw the option. A blank result is not evidence that someone is not certified — it is evidence that you need the other tool.
This is the one employers actually want in most cases. It does not search by name at all. You type the certificate number exactly as printed on the certificate — the format looks like GR100000000AA — complete an image check, and submit. It runs on PeopleCert's candidate portal and is also free.
It is definitive where the register is only indicative, but it has a precondition the register does not: you must already have the certificate in front of you. It confirms that a document is genuine. It cannot tell you whether a person holds a certification you have never seen.
| You have a name, nothing else | The register. It will work only if the person opted in, and only for the twelve schemes above. |
|---|---|
| A candidate has sent you a certificate | The verification service. Take the number off the document and check it. |
| You are the candidate and want to be findable | Opt in from your PeopleCert account. It costs nothing and it is the only way recruiters searching by name will find you. |
| The credential is TOGAF, IASSC, APMG or PECB | Neither. Each body runs its own check — ask the candidate for the certificate and go to that body's own verification page. |
Most failed searches are not fraud, they are spelling. The register holds the name as it was registered with PeopleCert at the time of the exam, which is the name on the ID document the candidate presented. Married names, second surnames, accented characters and transliterated names all diverge from what a CV says years later. If a search comes back empty, try the other surname, try without the accent, and try the candidate number before concluding anything.
Sources. The search fields, the scheme list and the certificate number format on this page were read directly from PeopleCert's own register and verification service, checked in September 2026.
None of this matters until the certificate exists. Our exam simulators run ITIL and PRINCE2 the way PeopleCert runs them — same question style, same clock, same pass mark — so the first attempt is the one that counts.
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BITIL.COM is an ATO (Accredited Training Organization) and an AEO (Approved Examination Organization) of PeopleCert. PRINCE2® and PRINCE2 Agile® are registered trade marks of PeopleCert.
