The missing link in the energy transition? ESNZ opens evidence on the UK workforce needed to deliver clean, secure energy
The Government faces two related but separate challenges in delivering the Clean Energy Mission and decarbonising homes and businesses: ensuring that all energy generated in the UK is clean by 2030, and the longer-term goal of decarbonising residential and commercial buildings by changing their energy systems and reducing their demand for energy.
In its Warm Homes Plan the Government has committed to upgrading up to 300,000 UK homes for cleaner, cheaper heating over just the next year - but previous heating retrofit and insulation schemes have had serious problems related to the skilled workforce needed to implement them.
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The response to the call for evidence in this inquiry has revealed that the scale of the twin challenges is significant. The UK requires a rapid and lasting transformation of the construction sector: industry-wide investment in skills, far-reaching skills reform, and an unprecedented recruitment and upskilling drive.
The skills demand overwhelmingly relates to improvements to existing buildings to reduce their energy demand and based on current technologies and ways of working would represent a 13% increase in the current size of the workforce. A coordinated home retrofit programme in England could sustain over 400,000 direct jobs and 500,000 indirect jobs by 2030, and more than 1.2m direct jobs and 1.5m indirect jobs by 2050.
But major energy companies have been forced to train engineers in-house due to little progress on the wider, dedicated low carbon vocational training necessary to support a strong talent pipeline.
The Offshore Wind Industry Council forecasts that, to meet the target of 50GW of offshore wind, the current offshore wind workforce of 32,000 must increase to more than 100,000 roles by 2030. Large numbers of workers will have to be trained or retrained. But the current picture is of a decline in skills in sectors critical to the transition. Investment and participation in adult education more broadly have been decreasing and even with a recent boost, total skills spending will still be 23% below 2009–10 levels and employers invest less today than they did in the past.
How can Government work with the education and industry sectors to deliver the workforce to deliver clean, secure energy?