The idea that knowledge and expertise plays a key role in contemporary societies is widespread and emerges in different forms and with different significations also in the professional cultures of teaching and nursing. In this paper, we will analyse the translation of this idea into various systems of expertise in seven European countries. We will give special attention to the practices of legitimating, sustaining and expanding the expertise knowledge within these professions and we will analyse the differences in their local and national contextures. What bearings (if any) have these different contextures on issues of experience, management and day-to-day work (for example dealing with pupils, parents and clients)? Addressing these questions, and from this point of view, it is our ambition to advance previous findings about different work and life trajectories for the North, South, and offshore States and, also, deepen the understanding the hybridity of the policies of restructuring.