How To Become A Lead Instructional Designer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a lead instructional designer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Anthony Piña Ed.D.

The average lead instructional designer salary is $64,428. The most common degree is a bachelor's degree degree with an business major. It usually takes 2-4 years of experience to become a lead instructional designer. Lead instructional designers with a Certified Instructional Technologist (CIT) certification earn more money. Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 7% and produce 15,000 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a lead instructional designer?

Anthony Piña Ed.D.

Chief Online Learning Officer/Director of Online Education, Illinois State University

If you have not done so already, become active in professional associations that align to your career interests. Attend (and consider presenting at) their professional conferences. This will be a source of professional development, networking, and future employment opportunities. Look for opportunities to gain practical experience-even as a volunteer. For example, if you have an interest in instructional design, you may check out Designers for Learning (designersforlearning.org), which can match you with service-learning opportunities. You should become familiar with the instructional designer competencies from the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction (ibstpi.org) and work on those in which you might have less training or experience.

ScoreLead Instructional DesignerUS Average

Salary

5.0

Avg. Salary $64,428

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.7

Growth rate 7%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.2

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.71%

Asian 5.69%

Black or African American 10.22%

Hispanic or Latino 17.40%

Unknown 3.92%

White 62.06%

Gender

female 53.27%

male 46.73%

Age - 44

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 44

Stress level

5.7

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.9

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.3

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a lead instructional designer

Explore lead instructional designer education requirements

Most common lead instructional designer degrees

Bachelor's

61.2 %

Master's

25.0 %

Associate

8.3 %

Start to develop specific lead instructional designer skills

Skills	Percentages
Instructional Design	10.60%
Subject Matter Experts	8.76%
Project Management	6.18%
Curriculum Development	5.97%
Course Content	5.04%

Complete relevant lead instructional designer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New lead instructional designers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a lead instructional designer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real lead instructional designer resumes.

Research lead instructional designer duties and responsibilities

Manage SharePoint migration for the education team by collaborating with ministries and establishing best practice guidelines for content posting.
Design content for web-base training courses using the ADDIE design model.
Develop new eLearning modules to replace and revise older ilt-base content on customer-service training.
Propose high-level learning solutions considering multiple delivery methods such as eLearning, instructor-le, self-pace, and web-deploy.

Get lead instructional designer experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a lead instructional designer. The most common roles before becoming a lead instructional designer include instructional designer, senior instructional designer team lead and technical writer.

Prepare your lead instructional designer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your lead instructional designer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a lead instructional designer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable lead instructional designer resume templates

Build a professional lead instructional designer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your lead instructional designer resume.