The study, upon which this special issue focuses, used narrative interviews to investigate how learning can support workers' transitions in the labour market in five European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain). The five countries were chosen to represent very different contexts in the way learning can support career and labour market transitions and the findings showed considerable variation in the types of skill formation and career and learning pathways with which many people in their mid-career and with middle level qualifications engaged. The narrative interviews, outlining the respondents' strategic career and learning biographies, were a powerful way to investigate how adults established in their careers navigated their ways through changing labour markets. The findings were also used to develop a more comprehensive model of learning for career and labour market transitions that would accommodate the different ways in which learning could support career transitions across the life-course, where these transitions may involve shifts away from initial occupational identities.