Your Next Career Move: Instructional Design or Curriculum Design
Two careers worth exploring are instructional designer and curriculum designer/ developer. Both allow you to use skills you may already have such as lesson planning, creating learning materials, assessing learner needs, and organizing content.
These careers can be especially appealing to educators who enjoy the creative and planning side of teaching but are ready for a new work environment. Although both careers involve “design,” they are quite different.
Let's explore what an instructional designer does, education requirements, and how much they make.
Instructional Designer
An instructional designer creates learning experiences that help people gain new knowledge or skills. Instead of teaching the material directly, instructional designers develop the courses, training programs, activities, videos, assessments, and other resources learners use.
Instructional designers can work in many industries, including education, technology, healthcare, government, nonprofits, and corporate training.
What Does an Instructional Designer Do?
- Create learning experiences
- Identify learners' needs and learning goals
- Create storyboards
- Design online courses and training programs
- Write instructional content
- Work with subject matter experts (SMEs)
- Develop content in a Learning Management System (LMS) such as Canvas, Moodle, Brightspace
- Use instructional design models such as ADDIE
These are just some examples, but gives you an idea.
Education Requirements
Education requirements will vary depending on the employer. Some companies will require a minimum of a bachelor's degree while some will prefer a master's degree. Others may only require experience including a portfolio of your professional work and a certification.
If you are a teacher, you may already have many of the skills and experience needed for instructional design. Instead of earning another degree, you can take a course with Teacher Transition's Become a Curriculum and Instructional Design Course. You can join a live cohort or work at your own pace. (This course is designed for anyone from any career background!)
Potential Salary
Many instructional designers and career changers report high satisfaction and fulfillment in this field of work as the salary is a nice incentive. According Devlin Peck's Instructional Designer Salary Report, the average salary for an instructional designer is $85k and the potential to earn $100k.
Another incentive is the remote/ hybrid options that many employers offer.
Curriculum Designer
A curriculum designer focuses on developing, organizing, and improving educational curriculum. Curriculum designers may also be called a curriculum developer, curriculum specialist, curriculum coordinator, learning experience designer, content developer, or other similar titles.
Curriculum designers create learning materials for courses, grade levels, subjects, or educational programs. They also make sure the content follows learning goals, academic standards, and assessment requirements.
These designers may work for school districts, colleges and universities, curriculum publishers, education companies, EdTech organizations, nonprofits, and government agencies.
What Does a Curriculum Designer Do?
- Researching academic standards
- Writing learning objectives
- Developing lessons and assessments
- Creating curriculum guides
- Aligning curriculum with state or national standards
- Reviewing educational content for accuracy
- Working with teachers and subject matter experts
- Organizing content across grade levels or courses
- Reviewing textbooks and digital resources
- Analyzing student learning results
Again, these are some examples. Overall, curriculum designers decide what students need to learn, how lessons should be organized, and how to check if students are learning.
Education Requirements
Education requirements will depend on the type of organization. A bachelor's degree in Education or a specific subject such as English, Math, History, etc. is typically required. Many school districts may require a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, Education, or a related field.
Teachers, you may therefore have a strong starting point for curriculum design positions because you already understand curriculum, standards, assessment, and student learning.
Potential Salary
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), instructional/ curriculum coordinators earned a median salary of $77,440 per year in May 2025.
Instructional Designer vs. Curriculum Designer.
Both careers require you to tap into your creative side while also using critical thinking and analytical skills. You think of an instructional designer as a builder of the learning experience whereas the curriculum designers creator learning content.
Instructional Designers focus on how people learn. They create learning experiences and find the best ways to present information so learners can easily understand and use what they learn.
Curriculum Designers focus more on what people need to learn. They organize lessons and learning materials, make sure they meet learning goals and standards, and ensure the content works well together.
Start Your Search for a Remote Education Career
Take time to research both careers, compare job descriptions, identify the skills you need and have, and decide whether you need to purse further education or a certification course.
Your teaching experience or other career experience can be the foundation for your next career even if your next classroom is completely online!
This blog post contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.