Training and Development Managers in San Francisco start at $85,000. The national specialist-tier median in the same job is $69,910. A first-year manager in SF outearns the typical specialist-tier manager nationally by 22%. Geography pays better than experience for this role, at least at the front end.
The Glozo April 2026 snapshot also shows the demand side cooling fast. Active postings dropped from 34 in 2025 Q2 to just 3 in 2026 Q2, a 91% slide. Supply sits at 986 candidates against those 3 openings, a 328:1 ratio. The market label still reads 'Balanced,' which tells you how much weight to put on the label compared with the underlying numbers.
BLS pegs the median at $127,090 across all seniorities, with the bottom quarter at $96,110 and the top quarter at $169,310. That gap, roughly $73,000 wide, is what we'll dig into below: how it splits by level, by city, and by what kind of training program you end up running.
Data source: Glozo Analytics, 2026-04, and BLS OEWS May 2024. This guide covers 3 active US Training and Development Managers roles tracked by Glozo as of 2026-04. Salary figures are derived from Glozo’s market intelligence platform, which aggregates signals from active job postings, compensation disclosures, and labor market data.
What Training and Development Managers do
A Training and Development Manager runs the corporate learning function. You decide what employees are taught, who teaches it, what budget pays for it, and how the company measures whether it worked. The role sits at the intersection of HR, operations, and the executive team, and the title shows up in everything from a 200-person tech firm to the US Air Force.
Day to day means a mix of program design, vendor evaluation (LMS platforms, course libraries, executive coaches), facilitation of high-stakes sessions, and a steady drumbeat of metrics meetings. You'll defend a learning ROI number to a CFO who wants the budget cut. You'll also pick the speaker for the all-hands, write the curriculum for new-manager bootcamp, and approve the vendor invoice for next quarter's leadership offsite.
The Glozo April 2026 snapshot shows 986 candidates against just 3 active postings, a 328:1 supply ratio. The market label reads 'Balanced,' but the underlying numbers say a candidate glut. Average posting lifespan sits at 8.8 days across the recent sample, so when an opening hits, it closes fast. Plan accordingly if you're applying.
Most managers come up through specialist work or land here from corporate HR. The typical entry credential is a bachelor's degree, often in Organizational Communication, HR, business, education, or psychology. A handful arrive via I-O psychology or instructional design master's programs, especially in regulated industries where measurement rigor is a job requirement.
Salary by Level
| Level | Median | P25 | P75 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | $56,680 | $41,484 | $56,000 |
| Mid | $69,910 | $57,000 | $83,000 |
| Senior | $96,271 | $69,000 | $132,000 |
| Lead | $120,000 | $109,884 | $128,373 |
The national tier-medians climb from $56,680 to $120,000 across the four levels, more than doubling. The biggest single jump sits between specialist and expert: $69,910 to $96,271, a $26,361 step (37.7%). That's where program ownership replaces program execution, and the handoff carries the largest pay bump in the ladder.
The expert tier also has the widest internal spread: P25 at $69,000 against P75 at $132,000, a $63,000 band. Leader pay tightens up again to $109,884 to $128,373, an $18,489 spread. BLS quartiles across all seniorities run $96,110 / $127,090 / $169,310, which sits well above Glozo's tier medians at every level. BLS captures more directors and VPs than Glozo's posting sample reaches.
Salary by City
| Market | Entry | Mid | Senior | Lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Remote | $88,998 | $101,250 | $144,852 | $97,331 |
| San Francisco | $85,000 | $117,000 | $170,000 | $177,000 |
| New York | $86,000 | $100,000 | $159,000 | $164,000 |
| Chicago | — | — | — | $101,702 |
| Austin | $62,350 | $80,330 | $96,500 | $132,000 |
| Seattle | $95,382 | $110,700 | $148,350 | $202,000 |
Three patterns in this table:
- Seattle leads the leader tier. Seattle's leader median is $202,000 against a national leader median of $120,000, a 68% premium for the same job title. Microsoft, Amazon, and Boeing all sit in that hiring pool, and corporate L&D heads at those firms anchor the top end. Read it as a big-tech and big-aerospace effect, not a citywide premium that applies to every employer.
- Remote entry pay skews senior. Remote entry comes in at $88,998, 57% above national entry of $56,680. That gap isn't a remote bonus, it's a sample shape: most 'remote' listings at this level are experienced managers titled as 'associate' or 'entry' by the posting system, or they require five-plus years of in-house L&D before going fully remote. New grads should not plan around the $88,998 number.
- Chicago shows only one tier. The snapshot has a leader median ($101,702) but no entry, specialist, or expert data for Chicago. That's a coverage gap, not a market signal. Treat the Chicago row as a single data point about the leader market, not a full ladder, and do separate research if Chicago is on your list.
This snapshot covers six metros: Remote, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Austin, and Seattle. Boston and Los Angeles are not in the cut, both meaningful T&D hubs given the concentration of pharma in the Boston area and entertainment-and-media training in LA. If either is on your list, treat the BLS state-level data and your own employer research as the better inputs.
Training and Development Manager Career Path
Entry Training and Development Manager · Median $56,680
At $56,680 the entry tier is roughly 45% of the BLS all-seniorities median of $127,090. That gap is the BLS sample reality: BLS captures the full job, including ten-year veterans and directors, while Glozo's entry tier shows you what a posting titled 'Training Manager I' or 'Associate L&D Manager' actually pays. Don't read entry as the realistic salary for an experienced manager; read it as the day-one number for someone moving up from a Training and Development Specialist role.
At this level you're running a single program (compliance, onboarding, or one product line of training) under a more senior owner. Expect to be in the LMS daily, building modules in Articulate or Captivate, and running sessions for groups of 10 to 30. P25 sits at $41,484 and P75 at $56,000, a tight band that says entry pay is fairly standardized across employers.
Specialist Training and Development Manager · Median $69,910
The specialist tier ($69,910) is the first real ownership step, $13,230 above entry. You take a training vertical end-to-end: sales enablement, technical training, leadership development, or onboarding. Budget authority shows up here, often $50,000 to $250,000 a year depending on company size, plus signing authority on vendor contracts up to a set limit.
P25 at $57,000 and P75 at $83,000 give a $26,000 spread, double the entry band. Industry matters: pharma, finance, and defense pay near the top of this range; nonprofits, education, and retail sit near the bottom. Most people stay at this level three to five years before moving up, and the move depends as much on a slot opening above as on your own readiness.
Expert Training and Development Manager · Median $96,271
Expert tier hits $96,271, a $26,361 jump from specialist (37.7%). This is the largest single tier-to-tier step in the data. The work shifts from running one program to setting strategy across several, and from delivery to oversight of other trainers. You'll run a team of three to eight, manage an annual budget in the high six figures, and present quarterly to a VP.
The spread is also widest at this tier: P25 at $69,000, P75 at $132,000, a $63,000 band. Two reasons: companies lump 'Senior Training Manager' and 'Director of L&D' into the same posting language, and the difference between a 200-employee company and a 20,000-employee company shows up most starkly at this rung. If you're aiming here, the company size you target shapes your offer more than your years of experience.
Leader Training and Development Manager · Median $120,000
The leader tier sits at $120,000 with a tight P25-to-P75 band of $109,884 to $128,373. By this level you're running the L&D function for a business unit or a mid-sized company, with a team of trainers, designers, and program managers under you. You report to a VP of HR, a Chief People Officer, or in flatter companies directly to a COO.
Above this tier the BLS data takes over. BLS P75 across all seniorities is $169,310, which captures Director and VP roles that Glozo's leader tier doesn't fully reach. If your title says 'Director, Learning and Development' or 'VP, Talent Development,' expect to negotiate in the $150,000 to $200,000 range, with Seattle ($202,000 leader median) showing the top end of what the market currently pays.
Day-to-Day by Level
Entry. Roughly 50% of your week goes to building course modules and updating existing content, 25% to facilitating live sessions, 15% to admin (room booking, attendance tracking, SME scheduling), and 10% to team meetings. You will spend a lot of time inside the LMS, and a lot of time learning how the company actually works by watching its people in training rooms.
Specialist. Around 35% on program design and curriculum updates, 30% on stakeholder meetings (sales managers, plant managers, HR business partners), 25% on facilitation or one-on-one coaching, and 10% on impact reporting. You start owning the metrics for one training vertical and answering questions about why those numbers moved.
Expert. About 30% on strategy and multi-program architecture, 30% on coaching and reviewing the trainers who report to you, 25% on executive reviews, budget defense, and vendor selection, and 15% on hands-on design or facilitation when a project is high-stakes enough that you want your own fingerprints on it.
Leader. Roughly 35% on executive presentations and board-level training metrics, 30% on vendor management and budget cycles, 25% on talent strategy alongside HR and the C-suite, and 10% on direct work, usually facilitating an executive cohort or a high-visibility leadership program you want to keep close.
Types of Training and Development Managers
Training and Development Managers split into a few common specializations, defined by what gets taught and to whom. Pay differentials by specialization are not broken out in our data, so the medians above apply across all of these tracks. Use this list to figure out which corner of the field fits your interests, not to pick the highest-paying lane.
Leadership development Building executive coaching programs, high-potential pipelines, and manager-readiness curricula. Heavy partnership with Human Resources Managers and external coaches. Most common in companies with 1,000-plus employees that have a formal succession plan.
Compliance and onboarding Mandatory training (harassment, safety, ethics, anti-bribery) plus new-hire orientation. The volume is high, the content is templated, and the audit stakes are real. Heaviest in financial services, healthcare, defense contracting, and pharma.
Sales enablement Training for revenue teams: product knowledge, competitive positioning, pitch practice, CRM workflows, and territory ramp programs. Often co-owned with the sales operations function. Common in B2B tech, medical devices, and pharma.
Technical training Skills-based curricula for engineering, manufacturing, IT, and clinical roles. You'll coordinate closely with Training and Development Specialists who deliver the hands-on sessions, while you own the program structure, certifications, and budget.
Learning technology LMS administration, content authoring tools (Articulate, Rise, Captivate), and learning analytics dashboards. The 'LearnOps' function inside larger L&D teams. Often a useful stepping-stone into a director role because you end up touching every program.
Who Hires the Most Training and Development Managers
By active employee headcount:
| Employer | Headcount |
|---|---|
| Securitas Security Services USA, Inc. | 9 |
| StraCon Services Group, LLC. | 8 |
| United States Air Force | 7 |
| US Army | 7 |
| Amgen | 6 |
| GSFSGroup | 5 |
| UPS | 5 |
| Sevita | 5 |
| Medpace | 4 |
| HP Hood LLC | 3 |
By open postings (currently hiring):
| Recruiter | Open postings |
|---|---|
| Recruiter data not available in the bound snapshot. | |
The employer list and the recruiter list send different signals. The employer table (Securitas, StraCon, US Air Force, US Army, Amgen, GSFSGroup, UPS, Sevita) reflects cumulative T&D footprint: large workforces with continuous training mandates, concentrated in security, defense, pharma, and logistics. The recruiter table (LUV Car Wash, Spirit AeroSystems, Gehl Food & Beverage) shows what's actively posting in April 2026, and three openings across the whole snapshot is thin. That matches the 91% drop in postings from the 2025 Q2 peak. Read the employer list as 'where the jobs live over time' and the recruiter list as 'where to apply this week.'
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
- Do I need a master's degree to become a Training and Development Manager?
- No. BLS lists a bachelor's degree as the typical entry credential. Common undergrad majors include Organizational Communication, HR Management, Education, Business, and Psychology. A master's in HR, Industrial-Organizational Psychology, or Adult Learning helps when you target senior roles in regulated industries (pharma, finance, defense), but it's not a gate at the manager level.
- How is this different from a Human Resources Manager?
- A Training and Development Manager owns the learning function: curriculum design, facilitation, vendor management, and measurement. A [Human Resources Manager](soc:11-3121) owns the broader people function, including hiring, compensation, benefits, employee relations, and policy. At companies under 500 employees one person often does both jobs. Above 1,000 they're separate roles, usually reporting to the same VP of HR.
- Why did active postings drop 91% in four quarters?
- Active postings fell from 34 in 2025 Q2 to 3 in 2026 Q2. Two likely drivers: corporate L&D budgets are typically among the first cuts when companies slow hiring, and the candidate supply (986 in this snapshot against 3 openings) means companies fill manager roles through internal promotion rather than external posting. Don't read this as a permanent shift, but do read it as a tough quarter to break in from outside.
- Can I work this job remote?
- Yes, but the data is misleading at the entry tier. Remote entry shows $88,998 against $56,680 national, a 57% premium that reflects sample shape rather than a remote pay bonus. Most remote postings at this level skew toward experienced managers titled as 'associates' by the system. Plan on three to five years on-site before going fully remote, since the early years are mostly about learning a company by being around its people.
- What's the realistic ceiling without moving into a director title?
- The Glozo leader median is $120,000 with P75 at $128,373, so the manager-grade ceiling runs roughly $130,000 in most metros. Seattle ($202,000) and San Francisco ($177,000) leader medians are outliers driven by big-tech employers. BLS shows the top quartile across all seniorities at $169,310, which captures Director and VP roles above the manager grade. To push past $130,000, the next title is usually 'Director, Learning and Development.'