Developing skills for green jobs

The World Economic Forum states the global green economy will exceed $7 trillion by 2030. A green skills and clean energy employment event explored industry growth, skills and next steps.

Credit:aydinmutlu

Ledetta Asfa-Wossen

2 March 2026

Plans to transition to what some call the ‘green economy’ have long been on the agenda for many countries but it requires a workforce with the right skills, said experts at a Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum.This includes not only skills in the low carbon and environmental goods and services sector, but skills to help businesses use natural resources more efficiently and sustainably and to be resilient to climate change.Eager to demonstrate the significance of the UK’s green economy was Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, former Minister of State for the Department of Energy, Security and Net Zero.“We should be in no doubt about how important this is for the economy more generally and for meeting our net zero targets. To put it in perspective, the CBI recently produced a paper on the contribution of the green economy which sets out how it has become a powerhouse for job creation and economic expansion. It showed a 10.1% growth in the total economic value supported by the net zero economy since 2023. When you factor in supply chain activities, the sector's economic impact skyrockets to £83.1 billion, supporting nearly 951,000 jobs in the UK.”The CBI’s report has been hugely reinforced by the Clean Energy Jobs Plan, added Hunt, which sets out how the government will work in partnership with industry and trade unions.“The clean energy transition is defining economic opportunity in the 21st century. The UK is in a good position, but compared to some countries, we could do better. In 2023, Germany had almost three times as many renewable energy jobs per capita as the UK and our investment is falling back. We've got a solid foundation. We need to press on further and faster and a huge amount of work is needed to develop a pipeline of skilled workers that we require,” said Hunt.

Growing employment opportunity

The UK has set itself a clear and ambitious course. A legally binding commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050, established under the Climate Change Act, alongside strategic priorities for energy security and decarbonisation.“That challenge is our opportunity to seize,” said Giulia Marzetti, manager of climate and sustainability at Deloitte and European Climate Pact ambassador, European Commission. “Energy stands at the centre of UK decarbonisation, with the aim to switch to low carbon electricity by 2030, boosting energy security, cutting power costs, and meeting climate targets.”Since mid-2024, the UK has seen over £50 billion in clean energy investment announcements. Just recently, the government announced 8.4 gigawatts of new offshore energy projects, equivalent to powering 12 million homes.“The UK is at the forefront of energy transition, and at present, I think it's leading the fight on climate change globally. Transforming the UK energy systems means strategic autonomy and higher resilience to external shocks. Yet, we cannot have an energy transition without a qualified workforce ready for the green jobs of the future,” she added.Marzetti stated that the net zero economy is expanding three times faster than the wider economy, driven by clean energy investments, innovation, and the rapid deployment of technologies such as offshore winds, heat pumps, EV infrastructures, and advanced manufacturing.“Clean energy is nowadays one of the fastest growing employment areas in the UK. The modern industrial strategy gives us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to align economic renewal with environmental responsibility and resilience. By backing clean energy industries, advanced manufacturing, and the circular economy, the industrial strategy lays the foundation for hundreds of thousands of new green jobs. To support this, the Clean Energy Job Plan aims to boost the industry green workforce, adding over 400,000 new jobs by 2030.”Getting down to specifics, Marzetti detailed some of the skills that are most urgently needed to help strengthen the economy and enhance energy security.“The government has identified 31 priority traits for recruitment and training, with 1,000 more heating engineers, carpenters, and welders needed by 2030. This is a clear blueprint for the jobs underlying the green transition. With the rapidly changing world of work, priority traits should also be aligned with digitalisation and AI fluency to make green jobs truly jobs of the future.”She warned that when we talk about green jobs, we should not forget jobs in nature, such as conservation, biodiversity, and ecosystem restoration.

Rethinking green career paths

However, it’s not as simple as training people for these green jobs of the future. Marzetti implied the green career path is in need of a revamp. Not to mention an improvement in essential areas such as safe working conditions and equitable salaries.“Creating 400,000 green jobs in the next five years is an ambitious endeavour. We need to make engineering and side jobs attractive from the start and catalyse the interest to join green jobs from an early age, or for school leavers, given the timeline. Wouldn't it be refreshing to hear a child say, when I grow up, I want to become a wind turbine engineer? Secondly, we need to retrain our high carbon sector workers who already have transferable skills. We also need to be mindful about competitions between sectors, for example between nuclear and offshore technology and financial sectors that may intensify gaps in green skills and personnel.”Marzetti voiced issues with the training and qualification landscape stating that numerous overlapping green job schemes had resulted in a somewhat weaker and confused message about industrial strategy.She welcomed the Energy Skills Passport, which is being trialled to help oil and gas workers transition to offshore wind and hoped for its expansion to include other sectors. And the UK’s return to the EU’s Erasmus+ programme from 2027 which will allow students and academics to collaborate and develop their green skills.Marzetti highlighted the need for both public and private sector involvement when it comes to building the workforce. Particularly private, to help detail specifications of the jobs required and to develop and create jobs and training.Citing what she called the three P’s, Marzetti explained how the next steps in developing green skills should be to – prepare the pipeline of talent, preserve the talent and propel the talent. She also highlighted issues with career longevity, diversity and engaging women in the sector.“Once people enter into the green jobs pipeline, we need to make sure they have a fulfilling and long career. Have you ever heard of the leaky pipeline? This is when women leave engineering, science, technology jobs early. The average age of women leaving STEM jobs as they climb the career ladder is 43, and 64 for men. Strategic interventions are required to keep women in the green jobs workforce.”Engaging all members of society to grow green skills is essential too as she stressed the need to both employ and train career switchers, career returners and veterans to unlock their full potential and create thriving communities.

Workforce priorities and building agility

Policy priorities for addressing skills gaps and attracting and retaining talent in clean energy were covered by Hugo Jones, deputy director, Office for Clean Energy Jobs. While Jennifer Barr, head of clean energy and life sciences, Skills Group, explored qualification pathways to meet workforce needs.Catherine Anderson, director of environmental consents at WSP, helped identify workforce priorities for the green economy. Sharing some large scale projects, she stressed that the reality is that many of them still require traditional construction skills, not just specialised skills.“If you take the nuclear out of nuclear, or the science out of it, then actually a lot of these projects still involve traditional construction skills and I don’t think we should apologise for the fact that. We do need bricklayers, construction workers and plumbers – these are the traditional things that we absolutely do need.”Anderson and other speakers discussed how careers and projects across industries such as construction, engineering and clean energy are often made up of highly mobile workforces with many employees being transient or project-based, making it harder to retain talent.“We need agility within our supply chain. We’ve seen with offshore wind for example there has been fluctuation with the amount of invested projects that may or may not go ahead. Having that agility in the green skills economy would mean being able to transfer those skills to other sectors, or types of major infrastructure.”She added the need for transferable knowledge to come through and warned of other ‘pinch points’ within the skills shortage.“We also need the ologists of this world,” Anderson continued. “We need the ecologists, the scientists, the socialists and the environmentalists to come forward as well. In my remit as environmental consents leader we don’t just focus on the project. We need to understand what is needed for that consent. We spend a lot of time in universities trying to inspire that next generation but it’s hard. There are so many ‘more attractive’ sectors from digital to AI that might seem more interesting to some than wanting to be a geologist, for example.”

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