This study concerns the identification of the particular competences required by education, training and development practitioners (ETD practitioners) in the South African National Defence Force to develop suitable and appropriate career and training strategies.

An applied research approach and a primarily quantitative approach were used. Questionnaires were completed by the commanding officers or the training managers, as well as the ETD practitioners at the education, training and development providers in the South African National Defence Force to determine the actual utilisation of ETD practitioners.

Descriptive statistics were used to determine the roles, core competences, levels of competences and clusters of competences required by ETD practitioners in the South African National Defence Force.

In addition, the actual utilisation of ETD practitioners was compared with a proposed competence profile that was based on the literature study in order to determine the competence gap that has to be addressed by means of career and training strategies.