Privacy-friendly analytics help us see which jobs people explore. They stay off unless you agree.Analytics off unless you agree. Details

Read the record
Back to the river
Skip to sources
Time Machine

Training specialists

Official title Training and Development Specialists (SOC 13-1151)

Also called Training and development specialist, L&D specialist, Learning and development specialist, Corporate trainer, Instructional designer

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 458,300 US training specialists, with median pay of $69,280 a year. Of the BLS counts since 2012, the May 2025 count is the highest. The earliest figure here is an estimate of 23,000 from 1944, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for training specialists: xAPI, mobile learning, and modern LXP, 2012 to 2022.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to grow 10.8% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

AI exposure studies

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend. In May 2021 BLS changed how it estimates these counts (a model-based method using three years of survey data) and moved fully to the 2018 occupation codes, so part of a change across 2021 can come from the method rather than the work.

Last updated .

Cite this page
APA

Future History. (2026, October 11). Training specialists: jobs and pay since 1944 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/13-1151

Chicago

Future History. "Training specialists: jobs and pay since 1944." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified October 11, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/13-1151.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_13_1151, author = {{Future History}}, title = {Training specialists: jobs and pay since 1944}, year = {2026}, month = oct, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/13-1151}}, note = {Last updated 2026-10-11. Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35}, }

The access date is today's date on your device.

drag to travel through time
187519001925195019752000now
Country
2026
Known then as Factory Instructor / Training Director (early industrial era)
Known then as Training Within Industry Trainer / Job Instructor (WWII era)
Known then as Training Director / Industrial Trainer (ASTD-era, American Society of Training Directors)
Known then as Training Specialist / Training and Development Specialist (ASTD renamed to ASTD)
Known then as Training and Development Specialist / HR Development Specialist (HRD era)
Known then as Training and Development Specialist (BLS SOC 13-1151, ASTD era)
Known then as Training and Development Specialist / Talent Development Specialist (ATD era)
Known today as Training and Development Specialist / Talent Development Specialist (ATD era)
Projected to still be called Training and Development Specialist / Talent Development Specialist (ATD era)
Data from the May 2025 survey
US Employment
458K
Est.

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic
Report an error
Median Annual Wage
$69,280
Est.

≈ $67,504 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic
Report an error
Beat · 1872

R. Hoe and Company, a New York manufacturer of printing presses, opens what is credited as the first factory school in the United States. The school trains machinists on-site to meet the firm's precision manufacturing needs. The model: experienced workers break complex jobs into steps, teach the steps in sequence, and verify competence through direct observation. This is the ancestral form of the Training and Development Specialist role.

Beat · 1887

National Cash Register prints what it calls "the world's first sales manual": a 450-word document codifying the successful sales presentations of its top performers. This marks the first documented attempt to systematize and transfer sales skill via a written instructional artifact, planting the performance-improvement branch of the training profession alongside the craft-transmission branch that factory schools represented.

Beat · 1943

January 12, 1943: fifteen professionals meet in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for the first board meeting of the American Society for Training Directors (ASTD). Thomas S. Keaty is elected the first president. The organization's stated goals are to raise the standards and prestige of the industrial training profession and to further the training professional's education and development. ASTD would grow into the world's largest professional association for learning and development practitioners. In 1964 it renames itself the American Society for Training and Development; in 2014 it renames again as the Association for Talent Development (ATD).

Beat · 1975

Researchers at Florida State University, working on a U.S. Army contract, publish the ADDIE model (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate) as a systematic framework for instructional systems development. ADDIE is not copyrighted and enters general professional use; it is updated and redisseminated broadly by 1984. The model becomes the dominant framework for corporate instructional design and is still taught in nearly every training and development degree program in 2026.

Beat · 1988

The Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee (AICC) is formed by Boeing, Airbus, and McDonnell Douglas to create an interoperability standard for computer-based training materials. The AICC specification, finalized in 1993, defines how a course communicates completion and score data to a training platform. This is the first technical standard for digital training content exchange, laying the groundwork for the modern LMS ecosystem. AICC is dissolved in 2014, with its work transferred to the DoD's Advanced Distributed Learning group.

Beat · 2014

The American Society for Training and Development rebrands as the Association for Talent Development (ATD) on May 6, 2014, citing the need to "better meet the needs and represent the work of this dynamic profession." The name change reflects a shift in how the occupation defines itself: from "training" (episodic instruction events) to "talent development" (continuous workforce capability-building). By 2014 ATD membership spans more than 120 countries and 100 US chapters, and the organization's research arm publishes the most widely cited annual benchmarking data on corporate learning expenditure.

Beat · 2025

ATD's 2025 State of the Industry report documents that US organizations spent $102.8 billion on workplace learning in 2024-25, up 4.9% year-over-year, with payroll for training staff alone reaching $64.7 billion. The AI reskilling wave is the most frequently cited driver of new investment: 85% of employers in the WEF 2025 survey plan to prioritize upskilling initiatives, and WEF projects that 59 out of 100 workers globally will require reskilling by 2030. For Training and Development Specialists, this is the most favorable demand environment in the profession's history.

How to read this number

OEWS is a point-in-time survey snapshot, not a continuous time series; BLS advises against using it for year-over-year trend comparison.

Each dot is a cited figure over time; the dotted line only links them (values between aren't measured). Hollow dots are estimates.

Official statistic: Copied by a script from a statistics agency table or a published study's table, not retyped by hand. BLS figures and the forecast and exposure tables are also re-checked against that table on every data run. Researched context: Researched from the cited source rather than copied from it by a script, so it is not machine-checked yet. Spot a mistake? Each figure has a “Report an error” link.

Cited forecasts · present → 2035

Will AI replace training specialists? What the research says

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than an average.

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, the spread is the honest signal.

What published forecasts say
Forecast change in the number of people doing this work, as published by each named source. Bars share one scale on every role, centred on zero and reaching the end at ±30%. Grey marks a small change, 3% or less either way.
BLS Employment Projections 2025-35
→ 2035
+10.8%
BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 13-1151 (Training and development specialists): 472.5 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 523.7 thousand in 2035, a change of +51.1 thousand (+10.8%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers (0.6% of this occupation in 2025). The average for all occupations in this cycle is +3.5%.
Official statisticReport an error
How exposed is this work to AI (research measures)
Scores as published by each study. Each row says what it measures. These measure what AI could technically do, not forecasts of jobs lost.
Eloundou et al. (2023), "GPTs are GPTs"
2023 study · Share of tasks exposed to LLMs (β, human-rated)
59.2%
of tasks
What this measures

Published occupation-level exposure from the paper's occ_level.csv for O*NET-SOC 13-1151.00 Training and Development Specialists. Shown: human-rated β = 0.592, the share of the occupation's tasks an LLM could do in at least half the time at equal quality, counting tasks that need LLM-powered software at half weight (β = E1 + 0.5 × E2). Other published measures for this occupation: human-rated α (LLM alone) 0.421 and γ (all LLM-assisted) 0.763; GPT-4-rated β 0.553. This measures how much of the work an LLM could touch, not how many jobs disappear.

Official statisticReport an error
Today, in this role

What's changing day to day for training specialists

Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.

AI is taking this onProduce AI-generated training video content, scripting and rendering talking-head explainer and compliance videos with Synthesia or HeyGen AI avatar tools, cutting production time from days to hours

Produce AI-generated training video content, scripting and rendering talking-head explainer and compliance videos with Synthesia or HeyGen AI avatar tools, cutting production time from days to hours; reviewing and editing AI-generated audio and on-screen text for accuracy, tone, and brand alignment before publishing to the LMS.[8],[9],[10]

Tools picking this up
Where your edge is

AI video generation has commoditized basic talking-head explainer content. Shift toward content types AI cannot yet produce well: scenario-based, character-driven stories with emotional nuance; documentary-style footage of real work environments; live facilitated virtual sessions where the human instructor reads the room. The specialist value shifts from production to script quality, scenario design, and knowing when video is the wrong format entirely.

AI is sitting alongside you hereAdminister and optimize the learning management system, configuring AI-powered learner pathways in Sana Labs or Cornerstone Galaxy, reviewing automated skill inference and content recommendation accuracy, troubleshooting escalated enrollment and completion issues, and preparing monthly LMS dashboards for HR leadership.

Administer and optimize the learning management system, configuring AI-powered learner pathways in Sana Labs or Cornerstone Galaxy, reviewing automated skill inference and content recommendation accuracy, troubleshooting escalated enrollment and completion issues, and preparing monthly LMS dashboards for HR leadership.[11],[12],[3]

Where your edge is

Routine LMS configuration, enrollment processing, and standard report generation are increasingly automated by AI-native platforms (Sana Labs self-configures pathways; Cornerstone Galaxy auto-surfaces compliance gaps). Shift time from system administration to learning analytics interpretation: translate completion data into performance-impact stories and identify where high completion rates mask low knowledge transfer.

AI is sitting alongside you hereAuthor eLearning modules using AI-assisted tools, generating first-draft course outlines, scenario branching, and quiz questions with Articulate 360 AI or Adobe Captivate AI, then applying instructional design expertise to restructure learning objectives, add real workplace context, calibrate cognitive load, and ensure alignment to observable performance outcomes.

Author eLearning modules using AI-assisted tools, generating first-draft course outlines, scenario branching, and quiz questions with Articulate 360 AI or Adobe Captivate AI, then applying instructional design expertise to restructure learning objectives, add real workplace context, calibrate cognitive load, and ensure alignment to observable performance outcomes.[13],[14],[3]

Where your edge is

AI authoring tools now handle the mechanical drafting work (outlines, quiz generation, branching logic templates) but cannot apply adult-learning principles that make training stick: retrieval practice spacing, worked-example sequencing, cognitive-load management, or authentic job-context scenarios. Deepen ADDIE/SAM and Cathy Moore action-mapping expertise so you direct the AI toward outcomes, not just content.

Get started with these tools

Where training specialists go next

Natural next steps for someone with your foundation: not exits, evolutions.

What each move takes

A direction you could grow

Training and Development Managers

Training and Development Specialists who build a track record of delivering measurable business outcomes from L&D programs, managing vendor relationships, and leading program design across a business unit are natural candidates for the T&D Manager role. AI is absorbing the content-production and LMS-administration execution tasks, pushing specialist work upward toward the program strategy and team-leadership work that defines the manager role, compressing the gap between the two. T&D Managers score higher on CRI because they own the L&D budget, set the strategic learning agenda, and govern the AI tool stack rather than operating within it.

What you'd add
  • · L&D program strategy: aligning learning investments to business capability needs and OKRs
  • · Budget management and vendor negotiation for LMS and content licensing contracts
  • · People management: developing a team of instructional designers, facilitators, and coordinators
  • · Learning analytics and ROI demonstration: Kirkpatrick Level 4 business impact measurement
  • · ATD CPTD (Certified Professional in Talent Development) or SHRM-CP credential
  • · Change management frameworks: Prosci ADKAR, Kotter 8-Step for learning culture transformation
What it takesSome new skills to pick up
Tools of the era

How has the work of training specialists changed since 1872?

The tools that defined the work, one line per era. Select an era to see how it reshaped the work.

  • Factory school and printed instruction (job breakdown + instructor-led demonstration)

    The first factory schools, beginning with R. Hoe and Company in 1872, relied entirely on two tools: a printed job breakdown sheet and an experienced worker who could demonstrate the task. The instructor broke the job into steps on paper, demonstrated each step in sequence, had the learner practice, and corrected errors. Charles R. Allen formalized this into his four-step method (show, tell, do, check) in his 1919 book "The Instructor, the Man, and the Job." This method, which requires no technology beyond a written list and a human observer, became the foundation of modern instructional design and remains recognizable in today's performance-based training models.

  • Training Within Industry (TWI) standardized job instruction method

    The U.S. War Manpower Commission's Training Within Industry service, launched in 1940, systematized the training function at industrial scale. TWI codified Allen's four-step method into three standardized programs: Job Instruction Training, Job Methods Training, and Job Relations Training. These were delivered as workshops using a trainer-certification model: TWI created a "multiplier" system in which one master trainer trained several company trainers, each of whom trained about a hundred supervisors. By 1945 the program had reached thousands of plants and certified more than a million supervisors. TWI proved so effective that it was exported to postwar Japan, where it became the foundation of Toyota's production system and the kaizen philosophy. The TWI experience established the professional norms of the corporate training field: task analysis, structured instruction, measurable performance outcomes, and train-the-trainer certification.

    Effect on the work

    TWI created the first large-scale professional corps of full-time trainers in the US (approximately 23,000 by 1944). The program demonstrated that systematic instruction could produce certified competence in unskilled workers within weeks, accelerating a postwar corporate trend toward internal training departments.

  • Overhead projector, 16mm film, and audiovisual classroom (AV era)

    The postwar corporate training room was defined by audiovisual equipment: the overhead projector (popularized in the late 1950s), 16mm training films (industrial safety films from the 1940s; broader corporate films by the 1960s), and eventually the slide carousel and VHS player. These tools extended the reach of a single instructor and standardized content delivery across multiple locations, but they did not fundamentally change the training specialist's work. The specialist's primary tasks remained the same as in the TWI era: conduct a training needs analysis, design a curriculum, develop materials (now including visual aids and films), and deliver or coordinate the program. The AV era made training more professional in appearance and more scalable across large organizations, without yet automating any part of the specialist's design or delivery role.

  • ADDIE model and systematic instructional design (ISD)

    In 1975, researchers at Florida State University, working on a U.S. Army contract, developed the ADDIE model (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate) as a systematic framework for instructional development. ADDIE was not a technology but a methodology that transformed the training specialist's work from an art-form dependent on individual instructor talent into a repeatable engineering process. The model was updated and disseminated broadly by 1984. By the late 1980s, ADDIE had become the dominant instructional design methodology in corporate training, and the American Society for Training and Development had formalized a competency model (McLagan's "Models for HRD Practice," 1983 and 1989) that defined the skills required of a professional training specialist. This period marked the occupation's professionalization: the transition from "good at explaining things" to "applies a disciplined design methodology to produce measurable performance outcomes."

  • Computer-based training (CBT) and AICC standard (Aviation Industry CBT Committee, 1988)

    The Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee (AICC), formed in 1988 by Boeing, Airbus, and McDonnell Douglas, created the first interoperability standard for digital training content. The AICC specification allowed a course built for one training system to run on another without being rebuilt, solving a fundamental production problem that had made early CBT impractical at scale. In parallel, early authoring tools (HyperCard 1987; Authorware 1987) gave training specialists the technical means to produce interactive digital courses without writing code. By the mid-1990s, CBT was standard in aviation, defense, pharmaceutical, and financial services training. The specialist's role expanded to include instructional design for interactive digital formats, and for the first time a portion of the job required genuine software-adjacent technical skill.

  • SCORM + learning management systems (LMS era)

    SCORM 1.2, released in 2001 by the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Distributed Learning initiative, replaced AICC as the dominant eLearning interoperability standard. SCORM defined the technical handshake between a course and a learning management system (LMS), enabling consistent tracking of learner progress, completion, and quiz scores across vendors. The combination of SCORM and affordable commercial LMS platforms (Saba, Plateau, SumTotal, SuccessFactors, Moodle) transformed corporate training delivery: a specialist could now publish a course to thousands of employees globally without scheduling a classroom or booking a trainer. This shift doubled the specialist's content-production responsibilities (every classroom course now needed a digital version) while reducing the delivery and logistics overhead. The role began bifurcating into "instructional design" (course authoring) and "training facilitation" (live classroom and virtual delivery) as two distinguishable competency streams.

    Effect on the work

    LMS adoption broadly expanded the specialist population: companies that previously needed one trainer per location could now deploy centrally-produced digital content, but they needed specialists to produce and maintain that content library. ATD membership grew substantially through the 2000s as the eLearning economy created demand for instructional designers at scale.

  • xAPI (Tin Can), mobile learning, and modern LXP (Learning Experience Platform)

    xAPI (Experience API, informally "Tin Can"), released in 2013 as a successor to SCORM, allowed learning systems to capture training activity from any context, including mobile apps, simulations, on-the-job performance, and social learning. This expanded what "training" meant for a specialist: the job was no longer just "build a course and push it through the LMS" but "design a learning experience that might span a mobile microlearning module, a live workshop, a peer cohort, and a job aid." Learning Experience Platforms (LXP) from vendors such as Degreed, EdCast, and Cornerstone built on xAPI to create Netflix-style content aggregators that surface content from multiple providers in a personalized feed. For the training specialist, the xAPI/LXP era raised the design sophistication required to create effective programs while simultaneously reducing the specialist's control over the learner experience (learners could now self-direct rather than follow a prescribed path).

  • Generative AI authoring tools and AI-native LMS (Synthesia, Articulate AI, Sana Labs, Cornerstone Galaxy)

    Synthesia (founded 2017, enterprise-scale by 2022) enables training specialists to produce polished talking-head video content from a script and an AI avatar in minutes, collapsing a task that previously required a production crew and several hours of work per finished minute. Articulate 360's AI assistant (2024) auto-generates eLearning course outlines, quiz questions, and branching scenarios from a brief. Sana Labs and Cornerstone Galaxy AI infer employee skills from activity data and auto-configure personalized learning pathways without manual specialist configuration. The AI era is the first technology shift in the role's history to automate a substantial share of the specialist's daily production work rather than simply changing the delivery format.

    Effect on the work

    AI authoring tools are compressing the junior end of the content-production career path while simultaneously driving a demand surge for specialists who can design and run AI reskilling programs. BLS projects 11% employment growth for 13-1151 from 2024-2034, the strongest positive projection the occupation has carried in decades, driven substantially by continuous reskilling demand as AI reshapes task requirements across the broader labor market.

Part of Business & Finance · see all 32 roles →
Different role?

See the same long-arc view for your own profession.

Browse the directory by industry, or search by title or SOC code.

Browse all roles

Training and Development Specialists employment and pay by year

On record since1872
Latest US employment458,300 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Latest US median pay$69,280 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Outlook+10.8% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error

In other countries

The latest figure each country's statistics agency publishes for this job. Each uses its own occupation definition, survey basis and currency, so the numbers are not directly comparable with each other or with the US figures.

  • United Kingdom (UK SOC 3574)

    Employment, 2025
    125,000, ONS ASHE 2025 Official statistic Report an errorONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Table 14): employee jobs in SOC 3574 Other vocational and industrial trainers, United Kingdom, 2025 (ASHE "number of jobs", thousands x1000; excludes self-employment). Open Government Licence v3.0.
    Median pay, 2025
    £33,236, ONS ASHE 2025 Official statistic Report an errorONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Table 14.7a): median gross annual pay for all employee jobs in SOC 3574 Other vocational and industrial trainers, United Kingdom, 2025. Open Government Licence v3.0.

  • Australia (ANZSCO 2233)

    Employment, 2025
    30,300, ABS Labour Force Survey Official statistic Report an errorABS Labour Force Survey (Detailed), table EQ08: employed persons in ANZSCO 2233 Training and Development Professionals, national (summed across sex and state/territory), annual average of 4 quarterly estimates.
    Median pay, 2025
    A$101,712, ABS Employee Earnings May 2025 Official statistic Report an errorAnnualised (x52) from A$1,956 median weekly earnings. ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025: median pay for full-time non-managerial employees paid at the adult rate, before tax. Surfaced via the Jobs and Skills Australia occupation profile.
View all 22 years of cited US data, each linked to its source
YearUS employmentAnnual pay (median unless marked)SourceReport
194423,000n/aEst., Training Within Industry Report Researched contextReport
1956n/a$5,200Est., University of Missouri Libraries Researched contextReport
197075,000n/aEst., Association for Talent Development (ATD) Researched contextReport
1985n/a$28,000Est., ATD (ASTD) Researched contextReport
1990165,000n/aEst., ASTD / ResearchGate Researched contextReport
2000215,000$40,830Est., O*NET 13-1151.00 (employment) Researched contextBLS OEWS 2000 (pay) Official statisticReport
2010203,870$54,160BLS OEWS May 2010 Official statisticReport
2011205,680$55,150BLS OEWS May 2011 Official statisticReport
2012217,930$55,930BLS OEWS May 2012 Official statisticReport
2013224,110$56,850BLS OEWS May 2013 Official statisticReport
2014239,500$57,340BLS OEWS May 2014 Official statisticReport
2015254,060$58,210BLS OEWS May 2015 Official statisticReport
2016269,710$59,020BLS OEWS May 2016 Official statisticReport
2017280,340$60,360BLS OEWS May 2017 Official statisticReport
2018291,380$60,870BLS OEWS May 2018 Official statisticReport
2019312,450$61,210BLS OEWS May 2019 Official statisticReport
2020318,040$62,700BLS OEWS May 2020 Official statisticReport
2021336,030$61,570BLS OEWS May 2021 Official statisticReport
2022367,180$63,080BLS OEWS May 2022 Official statisticReport
2023403,480$64,340BLS OEWS May 2023 Official statisticReport
2024436,610$65,850BLS OEWS May 2024 Official statisticReport
2025458,300$69,280BLS OEWS May 2025 Official statisticReport
Embed this timeline on your site

Free for any site. Paste this where the timeline should appear; it stays interactive, every datapoint stays cited, and it sets no cookies on your page. How embedding works

<iframe src="https://futurehistory.earth/embed/13-1151"
  width="100%" height="430" style="border:0"
  title="Training and Development Specialists, a Future History timeline"
  loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p style="font-size:13px;margin:4px 0 0"><a href="https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/13-1151">Training and Development Specialists: jobs and pay over time</a>, from Future History</p>

See all roles in Business & Finance