Use this Learning and Development Manager job description template to attract candidates who can build learning programs that address capability gaps, support manager development, and connect learning investment to business priorities. Adapt the responsibilities and qualifications to your workforce needs, learning budget, program portfolio, delivery partners, and responsibilities for team leadership.

A Learning and Development Manager sets the direction for employee learning and oversees the programs, resources, and partnerships needed to deliver it. The role identifies capability priorities, manages investment, and evaluates whether learning is helping employees perform relevant work more effectively.

A Learning and Development Manager helps turn genuine capability gaps into focused, practical learning programs. Their key responsibilities include:

• Developing a learning strategy that connects business priorities with specific workforce capability needs.

• Prioritizing a learning roadmap with clear audiences, objectives, owners, and delivery timelines.

• Overseeing the design of onboarding, leadership, technical, or professional-development programs within the agreed scope.

• Coordinating subject-matter experts and managers so learning content reflects actual work and available support.

• Maintaining learning governance, content ownership, and relevant records through the appropriate systems.

Learning and Development Manager Job Description Template

We are looking for a Learning and Development Manager to turn genuine capability gaps into focused, practical learning programs. The ideal candidate brings experience in learning strategy, stakeholder consultation, program design, budget planning, and learning evaluation.

In this role, you will work with leaders and subject-matter experts to distinguish learning needs from problems with tools, processes, or expectations. You will build a program roadmap, coordinate delivery partners and resources, and review evidence of learning and workplace application before recommending revisions or further investment.

Learning and Development Manager Roles and Responsibilities

The manager works with leaders and subject-matter experts to distinguish learning needs from problems caused by unclear processes, tools, or expectations. They then turn genuine capability gaps into a manageable program roadmap.

Key duties and responsibilities include:

• Develop a learning strategy that connects business priorities with specific workforce capability needs.

• Consult leaders, managers, and employees to understand performance gaps and the context behind them.

• Prioritize a learning roadmap with clear audiences, objectives, owners, and delivery timelines.

• Manage learning budgets and explain investment choices, expected benefits, and resource trade-offs.

• Oversee the design of onboarding, leadership, technical, or professional-development programs within the agreed scope.

• Select delivery approaches that suit the audience, including facilitated sessions, coaching, self-paced content, and workplace practice.

• Lead internal learning staff or external providers with clear briefs, quality expectations, and review points.

• Coordinate subject-matter experts and managers so learning content reflects actual work and available support.

• Define practical measures of program effectiveness beyond attendance and course completion alone.

• Review learner feedback and workplace evidence to improve, consolidate, or retire programs.

• Maintain learning governance, content ownership, and relevant records through the appropriate systems.

• Communicate learning priorities and help managers support employees before and after program participation.

Learning and Development Manager Requirements and Qualifications

Look for candidates who can connect learning strategy, program design, budget planning, stakeholder consultation, and learning evaluation to the responsibilities of the position. Prioritize relevant evidence from previous work, projects, or interview discussions over an unnecessarily narrow background.

Relevant qualifications and capabilities include:

• Experience owning learning programs from needs identification through delivery, evaluation, and improvement.

• Knowledge of adult learning principles and the ability to choose an appropriate learning approach.

• Strong program-planning skills for coordinating audiences, content, delivery partners, and competing timelines.

• Experience managing a learning budget or making evidence-based resource recommendations.

• Ability to distinguish a capability gap from a problem requiring a process, tool, or management change.

• Clear facilitation and stakeholder-consultation skills with leaders, managers, and subject-matter experts.

• Experience evaluating learning outcomes using relevant feedback and workplace evidence.

• A relevant learning, HR, education, psychology, or business qualification, or equivalent program-leadership experience.

• Familiarity with learning platforms, content workflows, and practical reporting limitations.

• Experience leading specialists, coaching facilitators, or managing vendors with consistent quality expectations.

Who Does a Learning and Development Manager Report To?

This is a program-leadership role rather than solely a training-delivery position. Possible reporting titles include:

• Head of Learning and Development

• Talent Development Director

• HR Director

• Chief People Officer

Depending on team size, the manager may supervise specialists, coordinate external providers, or deliver selected leadership sessions personally.

How to Assess Learning and Development Manager Skills Effectively

Use competing learning requests and a limited budget to see whether candidates separate capability gaps from process problems and design practice that supports workplace application. Give each candidate the same context, explain any permitted tools, and ask follow-up questions about their reasoning. Use fictional or anonymized examples rather than confidential employee, customer, or commercial information.

• Learning-priority case: Present several business requests with a limited budget. Ask the candidate to distinguish genuine learning needs and explain which programs they would prioritize.

• Program design discussion: Describe a manager-development goal and ask for learning objectives, delivery methods, practice opportunities, and manager support after the sessions.

• Budget trade-off: Compare an external provider with an internal development option. Discuss cost, capacity, quality, scale, and the risks hidden in each estimate.

• Evaluation plan: Ask how the candidate would evaluate a fictional program beyond course completion. Look for relevant workplace evidence and caution about attributing every business change to learning.

• Stakeholder role-play: Act as a leader requesting a training course for a process problem. Evaluate how the candidate asks questions and recommends a better route without dismissing the concern.

• Portfolio improvement: Provide feedback on an overlapping set of programs. Ask what should be updated, combined, stopped, or investigated before the next planning cycle.

How to Detect AI Cheating When Hiring a Learning and Development Manager

Hiring a Learning and Development Manager requires evaluating candidates on learning strategy, program design, budget planning, stakeholder consultation, and learning evaluation. During remote interviews, candidates may use AI tools to generate answers or receive real-time assistance, making it harder for recruiters to determine whether they genuinely possess these skills.

Sherlock AI helps recruiters detect AI-assisted cheating during Learning and Development Manager interviews. It can identify potential use of AI answering tools, deepfakes, candidate impersonation, and suspicious screen activity during remote interviews.

When hiring a Learning and Development Manager, recruiters can combine Sherlock AI with practical interview exercises, such as prioritizing learning requests, designing a manager-development program, and comparing delivery budgets. These conversations help evaluate a candidate’s learning-program judgment, while Sherlock AI helps identify potential signs of cheating during the interview. Review those signals in context rather than treating them as proof on their own.

Screen Learning and Development Manager Interviews for AI-Assisted Cheating

Hiring a Learning and Development Manager requires confidence in a candidate’s ability to build learning programs that address capability gaps, support manager development, and connect learning investment to business priorities. Sherlock AI helps hiring teams identify potential AI-assisted cheating and impersonation during remote interviews, supporting a more reliable candidate evaluation process.

Explore Sherlock AI to learn how you can detect AI-assisted cheating during remote interviews and make more informed hiring decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a Learning and Development Manager do?

The role sets learning priorities, manages programs and budgets, and works with leaders to build relevant capabilities. It also reviews whether learning is useful in employees’ day-to-day work.

How does this differ from a Training Specialist?

A Training Specialist often concentrates on designing or delivering specific learning activities. A Learning and Development Manager usually owns the broader strategy, program portfolio, budget, and coordination of delivery resources.

Which skills are most important?

Learning design, stakeholder consultation, program management, financial judgment, and outcome evaluation are central. The manager should be able to explain why a learning approach fits a particular business problem.

Does the manager need to deliver training?

Some roles include facilitation, especially in smaller teams. Clarify the balance between direct delivery and responsibility for strategy, vendors, specialists, and program governance.

What qualifications should be included?

Relevant education or professional learning experience can both be valuable. Specify any essential technical or sector knowledge, but avoid making a particular credential a substitute for evidence of effective program leadership.

How should recruiters evaluate candidates?

Use a learning-priority case, a budget discussion, and a program-evaluation exercise. Ask candidates to distinguish learning needs from other performance problems and explain the assumptions behind their proposals.

How can learning-program success be measured?

Combine participation information with feedback, application at work, and relevant performance evidence. Choose measures before delivery where possible, and recognize that workplace outcomes may have several contributing causes.