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.
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?
On Wednesday 5 March 2025
at 3pm:
- Dr Christian Calvillo, Research Fellow at Centre for Energy
Policy at University of Strathclyde
- Dr Richard Hanna, Research Associate, Centre for
Environmental Policy at Imperial College London
- Professor James Robson, Director of the Centre for Skills,
Knowledge, and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) and Associate
Professor of Tertiary Education Systems at University of
Oxford
/ ENDS
Notes:
- What is the Energy Security & Net Zero
Committee?
The Energy Security & Net Zero Committee scrutinises the
policy, spending and administration of the Department for Energy
Security and Net Zero and its public bodies, including Ofgem and
the Committee on Climate change.
Select Committees are not a part of the Government but a
cross-party committee of backbench MPs that is appointed by the
whole House of Commons. Our inquiries are correctly described as
a “parliamentary inquiry” or an “inquiry by MPs”.
