Content area
Full text
ABOUT THIS STUDY
Now inits 44th year, The Industry Report is recognized as the training industry's most trusted source of data on budgets, staffing, and programs. This year, the study was conducted by an outside research firm April-July 2025, when members from the Training magazine database were e-mailed an invitation to participate in an online survey. Only US-based corporations and educational institutions with 100 or more employees were included in the analysis.
The data represents a cross-section of industries and company sizes.
Fueled by aninflux of new companies, US. training expenditures jumped 4.9 percent to $102.8 billion in 2025. Payroll also rose by nearly 7 percent to $64.7 billion. And spending on outside products and services increased 29 percent to $16 billion. Other training expenditures (ie. travel, facilities, equipment) declined to $221 billion from $25 billion in 2024.
The training expenditure figures were calculated by projecting the average training budget to a weighted universe of 152,572 companies, using a Dun & Bradstreet database available through Hoovers of US. organizations with more than 100 employees.
Note: Although small companies have the smallest annual budgets, there are so many of them (113,133) that they account for almost onethird of the total budget for training expenditures.
For the first time, the survey also included questions for training solution providers. See pp. 32-33 for their input on new products/ services launched, changesin customer behaviors/expectations and outsourcing, and learning and development (L&D) trends they see for 2026.
Average training expenditures for large companies decreased from $13.3 million in 2024 to $11.7 million in 2025. The number for midsize companies remained just about flat at $1.6 million. Small companies ticked down from $374,207 to $333,305.
Some 31 percent of organizations said they increased staff from the year before (down from 38 percent), while 53 percent said the level remained the same (vs. 49 percent last year). Some 16 percent said it was lower. Manufacturers/distributors had the highest payrolls across all size divisions ($1.7 million). This year, midsize companies spent only about one-quarter as much as large companies, and small companies spent about one-third as much as midsize companies. The average payroll figure for large companies was $4 million; for midsize organizations, it was $965,731; for small companies, it was $320,586.
For...