Workplace learning opportunities are closely linked to the type of job an individual has, and people’s use of available opportunities differs. Learning opportunities do not translate automatically into learning: individuals need to take advantage of them. This chapter presents a novel approach to investigating individual agency in workplace learning, studying early career employees in three sectors (Retail, Metals and Adult Education) across nine countries. It develops accounts of 71 workers’ learning across 17 organisations, thereby investigating workplace learning as embedded both in contexts of work and individuals’ wider life structures. When individuals’ agency in workplace learning is considered in isolation from its context, it cannot be properly explained; other areas of life add to and/or limit individuals’ learning opportunities. Employment interacts with other parts of life.

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The adult learning sector is particularly diverse. Evidence on how its employees access workplace learning is very limited. Focussing on learning by early career teaching staff, using evidence from eight case studies across four countries (Austria, Italy, Slovakia and the UK) and different sub-fields (from providing basic skills training to corporate sector management courses), the chapter reveals that while staff have high levels of skill, their conditions vary significantly. In general, adult learning teachers’ jobs emphasise self-directed learning and professionalism, and novices’ career pathways are poorly structured. The learning-conduciveness of available work varies significantly; this cannot be attributed only to the type of services provided but also reflects organisational agency. Work organisation and human resource practices affect adult education teachers’ learning experiences, in early career and beyond.