The UK has one of the largest green skills gaps in the world. Though the green economy is surging, our workforce’s skillset is failing to keep pace with demand.
According to LinkedIn’s Green Skills Report 2024, demand for workers with green skills has risen by an average of 20% since 2021 but jumped by a massive 46% last year.
Roles such as energy auditor, environmental engineer and solar technician, were among the fastest growing.
Last July, 13% of all UK job posts required green skills – more than twice the global average of 6%. Worryingly though, the global green talent pool will need to at least double by 2050 if it is to keep pace with projected future demand, LinkedIn’s report stated. The finding underlines the significant green skills challenge that is ahead.
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The PwC Green Skills Barometer paints a similar picture. It revealed a 9% rise in green job adverts last year, despite a 22.5% contraction in the overall job market. Demand for green skills was particularly marked in the energy sector, where nearly half of all job adverts are now classified as green.
But what exactly are green skills anyway? Steve Coulter is head of economy at the Green Alliance, an independent thinktank and charity. He acknowledges there is a lot of misunderstanding and confusion around the term’s meaning and that different interpretations abound.
“The simplest definition of a green skill is that it’s directly applicable to the green transition,” he says. “So, given the transition will affect vast swathes of the economy and labour market, most jobs will have some green skills in them.” In other words, green skills are not just needed in so-called ‘green sectors’, such as energy and transport, but in white collar jobs, including legal and accountancy, too.
Reasons for the UK’s green skills gap
As to why there is currently such a significant skills gap, Martin Baxter, deputy CEO of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) believes there are several reasons. He agrees that the UK is ahead of many countries when it comes to decarbonising the economy. But the government’s aggressive 2030 energy targets are making it challenging for the labour market to keep up. The situation is not helped by high demand for green skills in other areas of the economy.
“It takes time to train people. So, how do you match the supply with the pace and scale of deployment the government is trying to promote?” Baxter asks.
“There are also a lot of mainstream companies now looking at how to achieve net zero, so suddenly we’re seeing a big increase in demand for green skills and capabilities more generally.” Therefore, he warns: “If every company has to be part of the green transition, it’s important to ensure upskilling is relevant and contextualised for different functions.”
Another challenge is the skills development ecosystem itself, which is not as effective as it should be, according to Coulter. “It’s good at the university level, but not so good at the technical and non-graduate skills level. Apprenticeships, in areas such as renewables and national grid maintenance, are in a dire state,” he says.
The need for change
If the UK is to successfully achieve its net zero targets, completely new roles and jobs will need to be created, including those in emerging sectors such as hydrogen and carbon capture and storage. Most of these jobs are yet to be defined. But more generally, most of the work that employers will need to undertake relates to upskilling and adding to existing core skills.
“For example, the skills required to work with heat pumps are quite similar to those of gas boiler engineers. But as they’re different machines, skills have to be applied in a different way,” Coulter explains. “That’s where the change lies: people have mostly got to learn new specifications and regulations rather than starting from scratch, but it’s still quite a big undertaking.”
This is where organisations, such as Skills England, come in. Set up in July 2024, one aim of the arms-length government body is to understand national skills requirements across all sectors in order to forecast demand. Another is to work with local authorities, local skills delivery boards, businesses, training providers and unions to ensure that the workforce is equipped with the skills the economy needs. This includes working with employers to reform the current apprenticeship system.
Jude Knight is head of low carbon skills at Cogent Skills, a training provider for the science and technology sectors. She says that having a national picture of skills demand is vital because the issue needs to be looked at in the round. But she is concerned by the government’s slow action to date in coming up with a coherent skills policy, particularly for the clean energy sector.
“The nemesis for skills is policy uncertainty,” she explains. “Until the government decides what it’s going to focus on, it’s difficult for employers and skills providers to plan, which means they won’t invest. The danger is we lose people to Europe if we don’t get it right, as they have their ducks more in a row.”
What HR leaders can do to tackle the green skills challenge
Despite such concerns though, there are still things HR leaders can do to get ahead of the game. One is to work alongside sustainability leaders to come up with a workforce development plan that complements the organisation’s net zero transition, or environmental, social and governance (ESG) plan.
This kind of workforce planning makes it easier to understand where potential skills gaps lie, and whether it will be more effective to develop or recruit the necessary expertise. One organisation that has already gone down this route is Sodexo UK and Ireland.
In 2021, the food and facilities management company pledged to hit net zero by 2040. As an important means of getting there, it created a sustainable learning pathway for its leaders and managers, 71% of which have so far completed their green skills training.
Pete Siddle, the company’s head of performance, learning and change, explains: “We know real culture change starts with people leaders and managers, so training here is critical, not just a nice-to- have. If they don’t understand the issues, other people won’t either. But if they socially model behaviours, employees will copy how they behave and talk.”
In October last year, the organisation also partnered with IEMA to set up a dedicated training centre. The aim was to help its entire workforce develop the green skills required to do their jobs moving forward.
The importance of upskilling people
“It’s about having the knowledge and capabilities to support sustainable practices and the transition to net zero, and ensure it’s the way we do business rather than being a standalone thing,” Siddle says. “It needs to underpin everything we do, which means each role is as important as any other in terms of making an impact.”
As part of the upskilling process, the learning team worked both with the sustainability team and IEMA to evaluate different roles and grades throughout the business and map what kinds of green skills, and therefore what training support, each required. “But it’s not always about providing a course,” Siddle points out.
“Sometimes it’s about offering resources. It’s also about learning in the flow of work – putting information where people need it, when they need it.”
Another important consideration is ensuring that communications take place in the right place and at the right time. “If people understand the impact, they’re more inclined to undertake learning,” says Siddle. “So, if we explain it’s not just about net zero, it’s also about making people more effective and efficient, it’s more impactful.”
HR’s role in embedding green skills
Lucy Becque is group chief people officer of Coventry Building Society. She agrees that it is crucial to embed green skills into the heart of the organisation’s culture rather than have such expertise sit independently of its core purpose.
To this end, the society has already made a sustainability app available to all its colleagues, to help them understand their environmental impact, both at work and at home, and to provide ideas about how to improve it. Leaders of the financial services provider also plan to launch a sustainability e-learning module this year, and are exploring which existing apprenticeship standards could help it achieve its sustainability goals.
“The real impact will undoubtedly come from us being able to embed green skills across the Group [which includes its recent acquisition of Co-operative Bank], and for colleagues to see this as part of their role,” Becque explains.
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As for where the Society’s highest requirement for green skills is today, she points to its property and estates team as a primary focus to help minimise its environmental impact. Next in line are the product teams who design offerings for customers, enabling them to make more eco-friendly decisions.
The finance and risk teams play an important role here too. Finally, the brand and marketing teams also require the necessary expertise to communicate the Society’s sustainability agenda and proposition to members.
“If current trends continue in a positive direction, we’d expect all roles within the business would incorporate green skills in some way,” Beque says. “It’s important for us to build up a future of this kind through our culture at all levels, in order to embed the mindset throughout the business.”
This article was published in the March/April 2025 edition of HR magazine.
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