Edinburgh Napier University

  When we think of lifelong learning, we often think of new skills that we might learn over our lifetime. But an emerging segment of adult and lifelong learning is the need to continually learn as part of a career or a profession. For many people who have had a career, they continue learning past the age of 45 and well into retirement, interacting with their peers or early career professionals as a mentor, part of a Community of Practice, in networking, in educating and training, and in caretaking their profession. As part of a doctoral study in Online Professional Development, 14 participants out of a cohort of 25 Built Environment and Energy professionals discussed their advanced career perspectives including the rate of technological change, peer learning, contribution to knowledge, concerns at teaching and training of younger professionals, and a range of other themes discussed in semi-structured interviews to understand how they were learning. As we move into ageing societies, the role of learning for all becomes more central to our societal structures but also in ensuring that we retain invaluable knowledge from those that came before us before that knowledge is lost forever. This paper details the study then makes recommendations for those providing lifelong learning based on the findings.