Average salaries in the learning industry were largely static during 2009, with 65% seeing no increase compared with 44% the year before. Benefit packages were hit during 2009 across all categories, with fewer people receiving company pensions or pension contributions, occupational sick pay, bonus schemes, private medical insurance, life assurance and critical illness insurance, share options, and company cars. Furthermore, those without any employment benefits at all rose from 13% to 25%.

The number of people who say their job has become a lot harder rose to 29% from 18% the year before. As with the previous year, the majority of people are working unpaid hours and whilst there were only marginal increases in the number of unpaid working hours, 2009 showed that a greater number of people now work unpaid hours.

The number of people who are considering a change of jobs during the next twelve months rose to 63% from 55% the previous year. Of these, more people want to move into eLearning (32% up from 22%), with a reduction in those wanting to find a role in management and soft-skills training (22% down from 33%). This trend to eLearning jobs also reflects Blue Eskimo's experience - the company has seen a large increase in the number of eLearning jobs that it is advertising.

Overall, the vast majority of learning professionals like working in the learning industry, but the figures for this year were down, with 80% currently either liking or loving their job versus 89% the previous year.

"The data refers to the whole of 2009, so it's no surprise that we found many learning professionals feeling the pinch over the last year", said Blue Eskimo's Nick Jones.

"However, the learning industry is showing some encouraging signs: There was an increase in the number of job vacancies during the second half 2009, with a significant increase during the last three months. If this trend is sustained, we would deduce that the worst effects of the recession may be over. We now expect that employers will start to increase salaries and benefits packages to retain their talent."