---
title: "Training and Development Specialist"
description: "Design or conduct work-related training and development programs to improve individual skills or organizational performance. May analyze organizational…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/training-and-development-specialist"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Training and Development Specialist

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-1151 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-1151.00

Design or conduct work-related training and development programs to improve individual skills or organizational performance. May analyze organizational training needs or evaluate training effectiveness.

Also advertised as: Computer Training Specialist; Corporate Trainer; Job Training Specialist; Leadership Development Specialist; Learning and Development Consultant; Learning and Development Specialist (L and D Specialist); Management Development Specialist; Trainer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $69,280 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $33.31/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $38,760 to $123,250, with the middle half between $50,110 and $95,050
- **Total US employment:** 458,300
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +10.8% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 43,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 35/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 458,300 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $38,760 |
| 25th | $50,110 |
| 50th (median) | $69,280 |
| 75th | $95,050 |
| 90th | $123,250 |
| Mean (average) | $75,550 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DE | $88,570 | $88,740 | 1,590 |
| NH | $86,050 | $82,609 | Not published by BLS |
| AK | $81,860 | $79,973 | 530 |
| WA | $81,860 | $76,495 | 8,130 |
| DC | $80,980 | $73,684 | 1,900 |
| MA | $80,270 | $75,900 | 12,190 |
| CT | $78,080 | $75,360 | 3,650 |
| VT | $77,800 | $79,422 | 750 |
| VA | $77,690 | $76,842 | 15,570 |
| NJ | $77,020 | $70,787 | 9,210 |
| MN | $76,710 | $77,783 | 9,650 |
| MD | $76,370 | $72,762 | 9,800 |
| OR | $76,360 | $73,877 | 5,190 |
| NY | $76,080 | $70,496 | 27,460 |
| RI | $75,910 | $74,218 | 1,130 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/training-and-development-specialist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/training-and-development-specialist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 452,300 in the 2024–2034 base year to 501,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 48,700 jobs, or +10.8%. Much faster than average: 10.8% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 43,900 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 78.3% |
| High School Diploma | 8.7% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 8.7% |
| Some College Courses | 4.4% |

## What the work involves

- Present information with a variety of instructional techniques or formats, such as role playing, simulations, team exercises, group discussions, videos, or lectures.
- Obtain, organize, or develop training procedure manuals, guides, or course materials, such as handouts or visual materials.
- Evaluate modes of training delivery, such as in-person or virtual, to optimize training effectiveness, training costs, or environmental impacts.
- Design, plan, organize, or direct orientation and training programs for employees or customers.
- Develop alternative training methods if expected improvements are not seen.
- Keep up with developments in area of expertise by reading current journals, books, or magazine articles.
- Attend meetings or seminars to obtain information for use in training programs or to inform management of training program status.
- Assess training needs through surveys, interviews with employees, focus groups, or consultation with managers, instructors, or customer representatives.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Instructing — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Education and Training — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Social (S), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 5.64 |
| I — Investigative | 4.03 |
| C — Conventional | 3.76 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.68 |
| A — Artistic | 3.19 |
| R — Realistic | 2.03 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFJ | 76.4 |
| ENFP | 67.5 |
| ESFJ | 67.5 |
| ESFP | 65.5 |
| INFJ | 62.4 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Training and Development Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/training-and-development-manager) — median $133,000
- [Instructional Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/instructional-coordinator) — median $77,440
- [Management Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/management-analyst) — median $101,860
- [Industrial-Organizational Psychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-organizational-psychologist) — median $193,950
- [Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselor and Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/educational-guidance-and-career-counselor-and-advisor) — median $64,330
- [Career/Technical Education Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/career-technical-education-teacher-postsecondary) — median $63,820
- [Career/Technical Education Teacher, Secondary School](https://nuecareer.com/careers/career-technical-education-teacher-secondary-school) — median $66,270
- [Human Resources Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-specialist) — median $75,940
- [Education Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/education-teacher-postsecondary) — median $75,350
- [Fitness and Wellness Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fitness-and-wellness-coordinator) — median $69,770

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/training-and-development-specialist