There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior instructional designer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $33.17 an hour? That's $68,995 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 6% and produce 11,500 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many senior instructional designers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, communication skills and decision-making skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a senior instructional designer, we found that a lot of resumes listed 9.9% of senior instructional designers included instructional design, while 6.6% of resumes included subject matter experts, and 6.5% of resumes included project management. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the senior instructional designer job title. But what industry to start with? Most senior instructional designers actually find jobs in the technology and finance industries.
If you're interested in becoming a senior instructional designer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 26.3% of senior instructional designers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 53.7% of senior instructional designers have master's degrees. Even though most senior instructional designers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a senior instructional designer. When we researched the most common majors for a senior instructional designer, we found that they most commonly earn master's degree degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on senior instructional designer resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a senior instructional designer. In fact, many senior instructional designer jobs require experience in a role such as instructional designer. Meanwhile, many senior instructional designers also have previous career experience in roles such as training manager or senior technical writer.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the right jobs to get there.
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of training manager you might progress to a role such as manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title manager, project management.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Senior Instructional Designer. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Senior Instructional Designer Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Senior Instructional Designer resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationCambridge, MA • Private
Philadelphia, PA • Private
Baltimore, MD • Private
Chapel Hill, NC • Public
Bethlehem, PA • Private
Long Beach, CA • Public
San Diego, CA • Public
Worcester, MA • Private
Tallahassee, FL • Public
Ewing, NJ • Public
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 9.9% of senior instructional designers listed instructional design on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and communication skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a senior instructional designer. The best states for people in this position are California, Washington, Oregon, and Maryland. Senior instructional designers make the most in California with an average salary of $87,921. Whereas in Washington and Oregon, they would average $80,115 and $79,894, respectively. While senior instructional designers would only make an average of $76,137 in Maryland, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. California
$87,921
Avg. Salary
2. Oregon
$79,894
Avg. Salary
3. Washington
$80,116
Avg. Salary