Digital learning developer
Download:
L&D careers guide: Digital learning developer
It’s an exciting time to be a learning provider. Technologies keep evolving, the learning industry keeps evolving and as a result, much is changing about how we learn. This all means that roles for digital learning professions are in high demand, both from commercial learning providers and L&D departments within corporate organisations.
How can digital learning developers get ahead in their career? What qualifications do digital learning developers need? What skills do employers want? Which software tools are used? Where are the employment hotspots and the major employers?
Bright Matter Resourcing’s guide to a career as a digital learning developer is intended for both employers and employees and for those just starting out on a career and those with many years’ experience.
Business background
The need for digital learning developers is being driven by the digital revolution, which places two considerable demands on how business provides learning:
- There is a high demand for learning. This includes ongoing personal and professional development to meet new ways of working and for every type of business to keep ahead with digital change in their industry
- Learning itself is undergoing transformation from classroom-based learning to learning through blended and digital mediums. Businesses need to use new learning technologies and keep evolving learning methods
Both these unprecedented requirements (more learning and new types of learning) mean that digital learning developers are very sought after.
According to a learning market study from learning systems provider Docebo, (https://www.docebo.com/elearning-market-trends-report-2017-2021/), the global corporate elearning market is predicted to grow at 11.4% CAGR from 2016 reaching $31 billion in total revenue by the end of 2020.
As digital learning continues to grow, demand is strong for the requisite skills to develop it. Although there are now more people with digital skills in the market than ever before, demand is still outstripping supply. And, despite the increasing talent pool, organisations sometimes struggle to find digital learning developers.
Like all of HR, learning development is professionalising and there is a heavy emphasis on ‘digital’. Over nine out of ten L&D leaders, participating in benchmarking organisation Towards Maturity’s 2016 report, cited 'digital content development' as critical in order to move forwards.
Digital is key.
Because everyone has to get digital, there is a blurring between traditional instructional design and elearning developer roles. That doesn’t mean that instructional designers have to code or use authoring applications (although many can and do), but the market now requires traditional instructional designers to more fully embrace digital learning tools and technologies. They need to have the ability to work with and support a wider range of digital creative professionals as part of the team.
On top of this, learning has taken a sharp turn in the direction of ‘enhancing performance’. Today's learning professionals, including learning developers, need to understand business objectives. They are increasingly required to work with stakeholders and create learning that helps deliver performance. And, learning development needs to be quick and responsive. Why? Businesses are under pressure to keep evolving and that pressure ends up on the shoulders of the learning developer.
"The concept of blended learning will be critical, but people can’t just apply an elearning course to everything. They have to grasp all content types and go beyond traditional elearning content design. They have to wake up to the fact that learners are using a broad range of tools."
Laura Overton, founder and CEO of market analyst and learning tech data benchmarking firm, Towards Maturity
And the learning has to be good, whatever the content type. Whether organisations are introducing techniques like gamification or are introducing new ways of learning, such as mobile or micro learning solutions, there is still the need for substantial, relevant learning.
"Content developers have to understand the concept of how to support an agile organisation and get stuff out fast. Some people are still constrained by the old style and approach of developing, but it doesn’t matter how beautiful programmes are – if they are not relevant and not ready when users need them, they are irrelevant."
...Laura Overton
"A big trend is agile working: creating resources quickly, testing and then adapting as necessary. We develop using agile ways of working and it has cut development time for projects from three months to four to five weeks."
Matthew Ash, head of learning at communications agency Media Zoo
The role of digital learning developers
There have traditionally been two aspects to the design and development of learning: instructional design and developing learning material. Instructional designers work with business stakeholders and subject matter experts to design the learning experience and performance outcome and then work with a developer to architect the user experience and create the learning material.
Digital learning developers create online learning experiences, principally: self-paced, elearning courses and modules, on-demand workflow interventions and multimedia learning components.
They work to a brief from internal and external stakeholders and collaborate with instructional designers, project managers and subject matter experts. They use creative technologies and tools to develop the learning product.
Digital learning developers’ work includes using and keeping abreast of the latest authoring tools, technologies and methodologies and testing and quality assurance.
The pressures on learning in business (more learning and new types of learning) mean that organisations expect more from their learning professionals. Learning developers are required to apply critical thinking to analyse a problem and develop the best solution. They are required to take a brief from the business, design the learning experience and work with wider creative specialists, such as app developers, video producers, voice-over artists, graphics artists and animators to produce the materials.
"At Media Zoo, our content team are instructional designers and elearning developers rolled into one. It allows us to be more flexible and share knowledge as a team. If the instructional designer and the developer are one and the same, you are massively reducing the risk of messages being misunderstood."
Matthew Ash, head of learning at communications agency Media Zoo
Matthew’s approach is interesting and there is increasing evidence that more organisations are taking this approach.
Cost-effective game-based learning, simulation-based learning, mobile learning and cognitive learning products are coming on to the market at a rapid pace and gaining traction. Organisations increasingly expect digital learning developers to be masters of multiple tools in their quest to deliver learning to suit the opportunities, limitations and needs of learners.
Skills
Digital learning development has traditionally attracted people with backgrounds in education, from face-to-face training roles and those with experience in digital multimedia. It has also attracted those switching roles internally within an organisation with specific expertise or knowledge of their employer and its products.
Digital learning is rarely created by a single person and the personal characteristics required of e-learning developers reflects this. They need to be agile, creative thinkers, collaborative and strong listeners. They need to be able to appreciate diverse thoughts. Each of these characteristics requires good communications abilities - a fundamental skill for all learning developers.
More is required from designers and developers now interms of how they handle ideas, execute them and distribute them to learners. Why? Because there is a drive in businesses for enhanced creativity, for highly engaged learners, for performance-oriented outcomes and shorter time spent by learners away from core tasks. Take micro-learning, with its media-rich formats for example; the market is demanding a greater technical skill-set in areas such as scenario-based learning and short gamified activities. These are two skills which are relatively new to learning developers.
The top six skills for digital learning developers today are 1. working with subject matter experts, 2.working with stakeholders, 3.instructional design, 4. project management, 5. storyboarding and 6. video production.
Tools
The top tools/technologies used by digital learning developers are:
- Articulate Storyline/360
- Adobe Captivate
- LMSs
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe After Effects
- HTML5 and CSS
- Scorm
- Video
- MySQL
Aside from the wide and varied list of general desktop tools and technologies, it is useful to consider the adoption of learning authoring systems (tools produced specifically to create learning). Fosway, a learning sector analyst, completes regular research into the European market for learning authoring systems and produces a unique report called 9-Grid™, (http://www.fosway.com/9-grid/authoring-systems). The companies/products listed in its 2017 analysis of the learning authoring systems market are:
- Adapt
- Adobe Captivate
- Adobe Presenter
- Agylia
- Appitierre
- Articulate 360
- Articulate Presenter
- Articulate Storyline
- Articulate Studio
- dominKnow
- Easygenerator
- Elucidat
- eXact
- gomo
- iSpring
- Kenexa
- Lectora Online
- Lectora Publisher / Inspire
- Lumesse
- Mohive
- Talentsoft
- Xyleme
Employer perspective
"The main skills I want people to have are modern web skills like JavaScript and HTML5. If they have those core skills I know they can pick up whatever tool I throw at them. I am less worried about skills such as Articulate and Captivate as they are not hard skills to pick up. I want people to look at the new tools, those tools drawing inspiration from the web. Modern learning tools look more and more like web pages and less like Powerpoint."
Eoin McDonnell, director of global learning solutions at ICON Plc
Eoin’s perspective is interesting to those progressing their career and applying for new positions. In our research, Articulate Storyline was a tool used almost comprehensively, with 80% of the people we researched having experience with it. Yet, when applying for a new position, candidates may wish to consider Eoin’s view that during recruitment, he first looks for expertise in web skills, ahead of individual authoring applications such as Storyline.
Eoin is looking for broad aptitude and ability, confident that candidates will quickly adapt to the particular authoring applications that different companies might be using.
Employee perspectives
Joanna Kurpiewska, elearning developer at Kallidus
Joanna Kurpiewska, interviewed in December 2016, explains about the diversity of subjects she develops learning for and the core skills that she believes are important to be successful as an elearning developer...
"There are days when you handle five different courses and there are days when everything goes quiet and you can focus on one project. Sometimes you need to jump into a different project and take over the work from another developer or do the fixes coming in from the QA team and answer any client issues forwarded from project managers."
"There’s great diversity in the kinds of learning I’m asked to create: I’ve been involved in selling techniques, languages, health and safety, financial services and banking, in-house software for motor companies, rules and procedures in transportation and the energy sector and courses on personal development. Currently, I am working on information security awareness."
"Imagination and creativity are really helpful in my job. It’s mostly up to you what visual style an elearning piece is going to have. Another important skill is being communicative at every stage of the development process. You need to work on a few projects at the same time, so multitasking is necessary. And you need to have an open mind and stay willing to learn new things around graphic design, animation, video and audio editing, programming and new tools on the elearning market."
Marni Wedin, elearning instructional designer at Google
Marni Wedin, contractor, currently on a 12 month contract with Google, talks about how she got into the industry from a career in TV. In her interview with Bright Matter Resourcing for this guide, Marni explains the steps she took, following a planned and proactive course of action to switch careers...
"I began my career in TV, but always had a love and passion for education. About 10 years ago, I started taking steps to transition my career into education and fell into instructional design. I worked in North America for both the corporate and higher education sections. When I moved to London, I made a huge effort to meet other instructional designers and learning providers. I received much guidance and support and am so grateful for the kindness that others showed me."
"On my journey to instructional design, I up-skilled through various formal and informal means. For example, I took courses in adult education where the focus was on methodology and frameworks and I landed a contract where I received on-the-job training - I was so fortunate to find that opportunity. I quickly realised that I had been doing instructional design work for many years, but I didn’t have the vocabulary to call it such."
"To do my job you have to be both analytical and creative, be a visual thinker and be able to communicate well. My speciality is collaborative, social learning, but I’m now working on building a series of thirty, five-minute micro-courses. In a typical working day I am copy editing, writing, doing quality control and looking for errors. Lately, I’ve also jumped more into the learning technology, and I am building all of my storyboards in the system. By no means am I coding, but interacting closely with authoring tools has been great experience. It’s making me a better designer. And when I have a second, I spend time staying on top of the latest trends."
Experience
Both ‘junior’ and ‘experienced’ digital learning developers are in extremely high demand.
Employers, generally, are reluctant to recruit learning developers without any learning development experience at all. There are exceptions, especially amongst the the larger commercial learning providers faced with an ongoing recruitment need. Yet, the graduate assessment process can be demanding and employers expect to see demonstrable ‘real-life’ business experience, an aptitude for problem solving, relationship management and high communications skills. A a graduate degree alone isn’t sufficient.
"At entry level, we test people for aptitude. We take people in at graduate level and train them up and we take apprentices. What we need is people with good stakeholder management skills, communication skills (verbal and written), analysis and understanding. They have to talk to experts who know a lot, find out what they know and explain it to people. They need to understand how people learn and be very good at learning themselves because technology is changing all the time."
Imogen Casebourne, director of learning at Learning Technologies Group, which includes the brand LEO, a large elearning development business
Important advice for anyone trying to break into the sector at entry level is to get some experience. Even those companies recruiting graduates are looking for some business skills. It doesn't matter if it’s only a three month placement or voluntary work - that still shows potential employers that you are committed and that you have some tried and tested experience under your belt, not just theory.
As well as gaining practical experience, network with relevant groups and forums on social media sites and follow influential bloggers and thought-leaders. Continue to build your knowledge base, keep developing your skills and look for CPD opportunities.
Learning developers frequently cross over from one industry sector to another. Working in one particular sector isn’t a barrier to going on to work in another. However, experience of developing learning for particular audiences and within particular business cultures can be attractive to employers, as they want recruits who can hit the ground running and quickly establish productive relationships with stakeholders and SMEs. For example:
- Sectors with high levels of technical content - aerospace, defence, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, etc - tend to have both lower staff turnover and often recruit from within their organisation, from other operational roles in the business.
- Businesses with extended learning communities, such as those in higher education and organisations like membership bodies, often require learning developers to have experience with similar types of audience.
- Business services consultancies (some of the larger employers of learning developers), look for experience with FTSE Top 250 organisations - a key market for these organisations.
Bright Matter Resourcing has observed that currently demand outstrips supply, so digital learning developers’ salaries are going up. One year ago the salary for an experienced digital learning developer was between £30,000 and £35,000. Today, £35,000 is the minimum for those with more than five years' experience.
Contractor rates vary according to the length of contract and the level of flexible working, such as working from home. Rates are sometimes lower if it’s a long-term contract (six months to a year). There are contracts available offering flexible and remote working and this can also lower the daily rate.
Qualifications
A university degree, apprenticeship or other higher education qualification, is commonly the minimum entry-level qualification needed to start a career as a digital learning developer. Around one third of digital learning developers have a degree in a general subject, one quarter have a digital media-related degree and one fifth have a masters level degree.
At mid to senior level, skills and experience count, above all else. While specialist learning developer qualifications are important and organisations like to know they are there, the focus is on experience and technical ability.
A masters-level degree can be a significant differentiator, particularly amongst FTSE top 250 companies.
Bright Matter Resourcing has found when recruiting digital learning developers from across its network that those with a masters level degree command a higher salary (5% higher) than those without. We have also found that graduates with a digital media degree tend to be more sought after than those with general subject degrees, yet without any significant difference in salaries.
There are many postgraduate masters courses and degrees offered for digital learning. Most are offered either part or full time or distance and a selection are listed below.
MSc Advanced Multimedia Design and 3D Technologies
Brunel University
MSc Digital Media
University of Portsmouth
MA Digital Technologies, Communication & Education
University of Manchester
MSc in Digital Education
University of Edinburgh
MA Technology Enhanced Learning
University of Wales
MA in Online and Distance Education
Open University
MA Digital Media
University of Huddersfield
Courses and certifications
There are recognised CPD courses and certifications supported by membership bodies for digital learning developers to draw from: learning sector bodies, such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the Learning and Performance Institute, and other bodies with a wider remit, yet related to the learning sector, such as the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Project Management Institute.
A selection is provided below along with links to popular, recognised certifications for learning developers.
Multimodal Literacies: Communication and Learning in the Era of Digital Media
Supported by the University of Edinburgh this course introduces innovative approaches to learning and teaching, with a focus on the use of elearning and social web technologies.
Instructional Systems Design
A free online course in covering learning theories and learning objectives and how they influence the design process
Elearning Design
A unique workshop incorporating development skills in a choice of either Articulate Storyline or Adobe Captivate
Advanced Apprenticeship in Digital Learning Design
Continuing professional development to suit those currently working as a learning developer.
Digital Learning Designer’s Programme
For learning professionals, media specialists and subject experts, providing skills needed to create engaging digital learning content
PGCert in Learning Technologies
Nine months by distance learning, University of Leicester
CIPD Level 5 Intermediate Certificate/Diploma in L&D
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Developing Elearning Content
One-day courses, Omniplex
Certificate in Designing Online Learning (CDOL)
The Learning & Performance Institute
Training Accreditation Programme (TAP)
British Institute of Learning and Development
The CPD choices made by digital learning developers
"When I’m reading a CV at the moment, I need to see evidence of CPD. ...I need to see that people are flexible and agile. People need to specialize. They need to be experts – learning professionals can’t be advisers any more. We need to add value."
Eoin McDonnell, Head of Learning and Systems, ICON plc
By far the most popular CPD qualification for learning developers is to have the PRINCE2 project management qualification. The dominant presence of this and other management-oriented CPD qualifications indicates a desire for learning developers to possess management skills in order to progress their career.
Employment
Industry sectors
The top six industry sectors employing the most digital learning developers are:
- Education
- Commercial learning
- IT and telecoms
- Business services
- Media
- Digital creative
Behind these statistics lies a move away from the use of external providers towards greater use of in-house L&D resources. 14% of UK L&D budgets are spent with external providers, down from 41% in 2009.
(Source: Bersin by Deloitte UK Corporate Learning Factbook 2016).
There are differences in what employers are looking for across the different sectors. A significant employer of digital learning developers is the education sector: universities, colleges, schools and academic publishing.
The education sector often requires experience of education-specific systems and tools, such as Moodle (the dominant learning management platform in the education sector), and experience of wider educational environments such as MOOCs and collaborative and social learning. While these organisations are clearly learning providers, there are significant differences between the education sector and the commercial learning provider sector, which comprises the second largest employment base of digital learning developers. The commercial learning sector looks for strong skills in communications, creativity and elearning tools and strong stakeholder and relationship management skills.
Individual employers with large learning development teams in the UK:
| Employer | Sector |
|---|---|
| Babcock | Manufacturing, engineering |
| Capita | Business services |
| City & Guilds Kineo | Commercial learning |
| GP Strategies | Commercial learning |
| King’s College London | Education |
| KPMG | Business services |
| LEO | Commercial learning |
| Lockheed Martin | Aerospace, defence, security |
| Pearson | Media |
| Sponge | Commercial learning |
| The Open University | Education |
(Source: 2000 CVs and profiles of digital learning developers.)
Digital learning developer salaries are highest in the education sector, being paid 12% more than digital learning developers working for commercial learning providers. And those employed in the corporate sector earn 8.2% more than those at commercial learning providers.
However, salaries for those with high-demand technical skills (such as dedicated front-end developers using HTML5 or those with XML or SQL skills), start at £40,000 and can rise to as high as £80,000 for the most experienced developers based in central London. Contract day rates typically range from £250 to £400.
Further information and insight about the salaries and benefits of learning professionals is available in the Work and salary survey completed annually by Blue Eskimo.
Geographic spread
Geographic demand for digital learning developers tends to be highest where there are the most corporate offices. London and the South East, as expected, are by far where the most learning developers are employed, with almost half of all digital learning developers in the UK employed in the capital and the South East (42%).
Demand for digital learning developers: Top ten cities
- London
- Brighton
- Manchester
- Birmingham
- Sheffield
- Leeds
- Nottingham
- Milton Keynes
- Bristol
- Reading
(Source: 2000 CVs and profiles of digital learning developers.)
Brighton has a high proportion of digital learning developers due to the concentration of commercial learning providers in the city, such as Brightwave, Kineo and LEO.
The increasing involvement of digital creative skills in learning, such as video, media, marketing, animation and mobile apps, is widening the geographic talent pool. Digital creative employment hubs in Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield and other major cities rich in digital media skills, are providing more choice for employers and purchasers of learning development.
There are noticeable differences between the proportions of contract versus permanent roles across the sectors. Education providers employ more contract learning developers than permanent staff. Whereas the corporate sectors employ three times as many permanent learning developers as contractors.
Getting ahead
Tips for getting started, raising your profile and keeping abreast of this younf and fast-changing industry:
- Use social media as a networking tool: LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, Twitter Lists, etc. Network with relevant communities such as eLearning Network, Learning and Performance Institute, and Learning and Skills Group.
- Keep up to date with what’s new across the market: commercial providers often have demos and announcements on their websites.
- Learn about the industry’s frameworks and methods, such as 70:20:10, ADDIE, ADAPT, Agile, SCORM and Tin Can xAPI - understand why business uses them and also their limitations.
- Ask peers and clients for feedback on your work. Be part of a community of best practice and open yourself up for constructive feedback.
- Be aware of trends and evolving market needs, such as micro learning, gamified approaches. Attend the industry’s webinars and conferences.
- Keep a portfolio of your work with links to demos and examples.
"Meet content designers. Talk to them. Hang out in forums. There are lots of free tools out there and it’s an iterative process. Develop and showcase your interest."
Laura Overton, founder and CEO of market analyst and learning tech data benchmarking firm, Towards Maturity
"Having a community of practice is very important. Find a tribe of other designers and like-minded people."
Marni Wedin, elearning instructional designer at Google
"A great place to start learning about building tools are elearning communities, like the Articulate community. There you can find tons of free articles, tips, how-tos, guides about authoring tools, storyboarding and working with clients, which is an invaluable help, particularly for an elearning novice. I think the Articulate community is the most helpful. I always find many developers there ready to advise."
Joanna Kurpiewska, elearning developer at Kallidus
Information sources
There is a host of community groups, membership bodies and sources of industry information available to digital learning developers, including:
- Articulate Community Forum
A community for use of the world’s most popular elearning authoring application, Articulate - ADAPT Forum
Information and resources about the ADAPT development framework - CIPD
One of the largest and most respected forums for L&D and HR professionals - e-Learning Global Network on Linkedin
Networking group for professionals working in elearning and instructional design - e-Learning Guild (US)
The oldest and one of the most trusted sources of information, networking and community for elearning professionals - e-Learning Network
Collaboration, guidance and opportunities to network with elearning professionals - Learning and Skills Group
International community of organisational learning and learning technology professionals - Learning News
News about the learning industry and announcements from learning organisations - Now Comms Top 100 Websites
A ranking of the most popular L&D websites - Training Journal Forum
L&D publication and its community for L&D professionals to share knowledge and opinions - Training Zone
L&D publication and online community.
Events
Conferences and exhibitions offer learning developers an opportunity to keep a finger on the pulse of the industry - to keep abreast of the latest thought-leadership and to keep in touch with commercial providers and their offerings. At the 2017 Learning Technologies Exhibition, the largest UK exhibition of commercial learning providers, over 160 of the 212 exhibiting organisations develop learning of one form or another. All of the industry’s events offer great networking opportunities.
Some of the learning industry’s larger events include:
CIPD Learning & Development Show, London
CIPD Annual Conference, Manchester
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank and acknowledge the contributions of several experts for their insights and assistance in the production of this careers guide.
- Matthew Ash, Head of Learning, Media Zoo
- Imogen Casebourne, Director of Learning, Learning Technologies Group
- Joanna Kurpiewska, Elearning Developer, Kallidus
- Eoin McDonnell, Head of Learning Design and Systems, ICON plc
- Laura Overton, Founder and CEO, Towards Maturity
- Marni Wedin, Elearning Instructional Designer, Google
About the research
‘Bright Matter Resourcing’s ‘Guide to a career as a digital learning developer’ was compiled from:
- Analysis of the CVs and profiles of 2,000 digital developers of learning in the UK, considering: industry sector, qualifications, geographic location, length of experience and employment status; and interviews with and analysis of a further 100 digital developers of learning, considering: salary, job skills and expertise with learning development software tools and technologies.
- Observations of the digital learning market and through experience of recruiting digital learning developers for organisations in the UK.
- Interviews with employers of digital learning developers, including corporate L&D managers and CEOs and executives at commercial learning providers.
The research was carried out between November 2016 and February 2017.
Legal and copyright statement
This guide is intended to be helpful to those interested in information about careers in learning development, however it should not be considered as advice. The authors have worked to make this guide as accurate as possible, but no fitness or warranty is provided and the guide is offered on an ‘as is’ basis. The authors shall have no liability or responsibility for any loss or damages resulting from the use of information in this guide. Any names included that are trademarks are acknowledged. The guide may be distributed freely, but may not be used, either in whole or part, for commercial gain without the prior permission of Bright Matter Resourcing Ltd.
Register for L&D job alerts