Every week, someone in a teaching forum posts the same question: "What will I actually earn if I leave?"
The replies are all over the place. Someone's cousin got $120k in L&D. Someone else took a $15k pay cut to become an instructional designer. A third person says they doubled their salary in edtech. None of it is anchored to anything useful.
I spent eight years in classrooms before moving into product leadership. I've helped hundreds of teachers plan their transitions through the Teach Yourself Out community. And the single biggest source of anxiety, every time, is money.
So I put together the salary guide I wish I'd had. Real ranges. Multiple countries. Honest caveats.
A few things to know before we get into numbers
Teaching salaries vary wildly depending on where you are, how long you've been at it, and whether you're in a public or private system. A 10-year teacher in Sydney might be on $110k AUD. A second-year teacher in rural England might be on £28k. The gap matters because it changes what "taking a pay cut" actually means for you.
The ranges below are for mid-career professionals (3 to 7 years of experience in the new role). Entry-level roles will sit at the lower end or below. Senior roles will exceed the upper end.
All figures are annual, in local currency, and based on 2025/2026 market data from job boards, salary surveys, and what I've seen firsthand from teachers who've made the move.
Instructional Design
This is where most teachers land first. You already know how to design learning experiences. The shift is from classroom delivery to digital or blended formats, usually in a corporate or higher education setting.
| Country | Salary Range |
|---|---|
| Australia | $85,000 – $120,000 AUD |
| United Kingdom | £35,000 – £55,000 GBP |
| United States | $65,000 – $95,000 USD |
| Canada | $65,000 – $90,000 CAD |
The lower end is common for your first instructional design role, especially if you're coming in without a portfolio. The upper end typically requires experience with authoring tools (Articulate, Captivate) and a track record of building measurable programmes.
Learning and Development (L&D)
L&D roles sit inside corporations and focus on employee training, onboarding, leadership development, and skills programmes. Teachers are genuinely well-suited here because you understand how adults learn (even if your experience is technically with kids, the principles transfer).
| Country | Salary Range |
|---|---|
| Australia | $90,000 – $130,000 AUD |
| United Kingdom | £38,000 – £60,000 GBP |
| United States | $70,000 – $105,000 USD |
| Canada | $70,000 – $95,000 CAD |
L&D manager roles push higher. If you move into a Head of L&D position at a mid-sized company, $140k+ AUD or $110k+ USD is realistic within five to seven years.
Corporate Training
Similar to L&D but more delivery-focused. You're running workshops, facilitating sessions, and building capability across teams. Teachers who love the performance side of the job (standing up, reading a room, thinking on your feet) thrive here.
| Country | Salary Range |
|---|---|
| Australia | $80,000 – $115,000 AUD |
| United Kingdom | £32,000 – £50,000 GBP |
| United States | $60,000 – $90,000 USD |
| Canada | $60,000 – $85,000 CAD |
Contract and freelance training work can pay significantly more per day ($800 to $1,500 AUD per day is common for experienced facilitators), but the trade-off is inconsistency. You might have a brilliant quarter followed by a quiet one.
Curriculum Design
This covers roles in edtech companies, publishers, government education bodies, and training organisations. You're designing programmes, writing content, mapping outcomes, and aligning to frameworks. If you were the person at your school who rewrote the scope and sequence every year, you already do this.
| Country | Salary Range |
|---|---|
| Australia | $80,000 – $115,000 AUD |
| United Kingdom | £33,000 – £52,000 GBP |
| United States | $60,000 – $90,000 USD |
| Canada | $60,000 – $85,000 CAD |
Curriculum roles in government or large publishers can push higher, but they often move slowly in hiring and require patience with bureaucracy.
Edtech (Various Roles)
Edtech is broad. It includes customer success, product marketing, sales engineering, implementation, and content roles at education technology companies. Teachers bring domain expertise that's genuinely hard to hire for.
| Country | Salary Range |
|---|---|
| Australia | $80,000 – $130,000 AUD |
| United Kingdom | £35,000 – £65,000 GBP |
| United States | $65,000 – $110,000 USD |
| Canada | $65,000 – $100,000 CAD |
The range is wide because "edtech" covers everything from a 5-person startup to Google for Education. Equity and bonuses can add meaningful upside at well-funded startups, though that comes with risk.
Product Management
This is the role I ended up in, and it's increasingly popular among ex-teachers. You need to build additional skills (user research, roadmapping, stakeholder management at a commercial level), but teachers who invest in the transition often do very well.
| Country | Salary Range |
|---|---|
| Australia | $110,000 – $170,000 AUD |
| United Kingdom | £50,000 – £85,000 GBP |
| United States | $100,000 – $160,000 USD |
| Canada | $90,000 – $140,000 CAD |
Product management has one of the highest ceilings of any role teachers move into. Senior PMs and Directors of Product regularly earn $180k+ AUD or $150k+ USD. The path there takes time (typically three to five years from your first PM role).
The Honest Bit About the Transition
Most teachers will take a short-term pay cut when they switch. If you're a senior teacher at the top of the pay scale, your first corporate role might pay less. For some people, that gap is $5k. For others, it's $20k.
The pay cut is usually temporary. Within two to three years, most ex-teachers I've worked with match or exceed their teaching salary. Within five years, many significantly exceed it, particularly those who move into management, product, or senior L&D roles.
What changes alongside the salary is your earning trajectory. Teaching salaries plateau. After year 10 or so, your increases are small and predictable. Corporate salaries have a longer runway, with more room to negotiate, move laterally, or step into leadership.
The other thing worth factoring in: conditions. Paid overtime (or at least being compensated for extra hours), no weekend marking, genuine flexibility in when and where you work, and the ability to take annual leave without writing three days of substitute plans.
What to Do With This Information
If you're sitting in a staffroom right now, Googling salary ranges on your lunch break, I want you to know: you're not crazy for wanting more. You're not ungrateful. You're a professional assessing your options, and that's exactly what professionals do.
Pick two or three roles from this list that match your strengths. Look at actual job listings in your city or region. Compare the salary ranges to what you're earning now. Build a realistic picture.
And if you want to do that alongside other teachers who are figuring out the same thing, the Teach Yourself Out community is where hundreds of us are working through it together. Free to join. No fluff.
Your skills are worth more than the system is paying you. The numbers back that up.
Resources for Your Transition
- Teach Yourself Out — The complete guide to transitioning from teaching to tech, L&D, and beyond.
- Join the Community — Connect with hundreds of teachers planning and making their transitions. Free to join.
- The Capable Organisation — Understanding how organisations actually work (and what they need from people like you).
Written by
Jason La Greca
Founder of Teachnology. Building AI that empowers humans, not replaces them.
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