Every year we publish our Salary & Rate Guide to help learning leaders, hiring managers and talent teams understand what’s happening across the learning market.
Our 2026 guide has just been released, bringing together salary benchmarks, contract rates and hiring insights from across the market, based on the conversations we’re having every day with clients, candidates and contractors across the Private Sector, Education, and Public Sector & Defence.
It’s clear that hiring priorities have continued to shift over the past 12 months.
We’re seeing contract hiring continue to dominate, with organisations increasingly bringing in specialist resource to deliver transformation projects, platform implementations and change programmes. In some areas of the market, contract placements now account for almost 90% of the placements we’re making.
We’re also seeing learning teams become much more closely connected to wider business change. Skills such as product management, business analysis, stakeholder engagement and technology adoption are increasingly being sought alongside more traditional learning and development expertise.
AI remains firmly on the agenda. While dedicated AI roles are still relatively new, we’ve started to see organisations hiring AI Adoption Consultants to help identify opportunities, support adoption and build capability across their workforce.
If you’re reviewing salaries, setting contractor budgets or planning future hires, our 2026 guide provides an invaluable snapshot of the current market.
To request a copy, get in touch with the Instinct team today.
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