Professionals' knowledge and decisions influence all facets of modern life. Some might argue that professionals' learning and work are not terribly different to other vocational practitioners. The authors are among those who accept, first, that professional practice is a particular domain of vocational learning and work, and second, that professional practices and knowledge are shifting dramatically in ways which have important implications for education. Further, the authors hold that certain conventional conceptions of professional learning are limited both in understanding different professionals' challenges of learning in practice, and in promoting forms of professional education that can truly support their preparation for and continuing responses to the radical challenges confronting them. The authors therefore argue for some reconceptualisation of professionals' learning. In this article, the authors first review the kinds of changes to professional practice conditions that they believe to be most significant in understanding their knowledge and learning. Then they outline conceptions of professional learning that have proved popular and useful in recent decades but which, they maintain, do not always address the emerging complexities of their practice. They then turn to introduce more fully what they mean by sociomaterial conceptions of practice and learning, and to show how each paper in this special issue contributes to expanding and enriching understandings of professional learning through such conceptions.