Can the energy industry cope with a green jobs boom?

There are not enough workers with the skills to transition to low-carbon jobs and fill the 400,000 vacancies PwC identifies in a report. The industry has work to do. But so does government, writes James Moore

ScottishPower said it needed extra staff after winning a record number of new green energy infrastructure contracts (PA)

PwC, the consultancy, has sought to push back against the always questionable fears that a low-carbon transition will cost jobs.

The Energy Transition and Jobs – a research paper building upon its Green Jobs Barometer published today – argues to the contrary.

It says that industries such as nuclear, hydrogen and energy from renewable sources will require 400,000 skilled employees by 2030.

That is a challenging-looking number. Fortunately, the research finds that there is a 270,000-strong pool of workers from the existing oil and gas sector with the requisite skills to transfer into low-carbon fields and thus fill some of those roles.

But there’s a problem. Around 20 per cent of them are expected to retire by 2030, reducing its size to 216,000 and contributing to a shortfall of nearly 200,000, without which the UK’s ability to secure the renewable energy generation necessary to meet its targets will be constrained.

That would be disappointing on its own, before one considers the current price boom created by Russia retaliating against Western sanctions imposed over its aggression in Ukraine.

This only adds to the case for an aggressive push to transition. It is as much a matter of energy security as it is cutting carbon (which is quite enough of an imperative on its own).

So how to plug that gap?

One option would be to import necessary workers from overseas, which ought to be possible via skilled worker visas in some cases, but which also goes against the prevailing political wind.

Persuading some of the workers who already have the requisite skills to remain in the workforce for longer wouldn’t hurt.

A longstanding problem for the shortage-wracked UK labour market is people leaving early. Tempting them into staying around a little longer makes sense. It requires imagination on the part of employers, perhaps through facilitating more part-time and/or flexible working.

Option three, of course, is to find and or/train new workers. The industry isn’t short of potential sources if it could just bring itself to utilise them.

Eduardo Rodriguez Montemayor, PwC’s labour market economist and co-author of the research, highlights the industry’s poor record when it comes to female and ethnic minority workers.

A hard look at why that is might help fill some of the vacancies set to be created.

We know that affording workers the opportunity to work flexibly (see above) helps the former group. However, there may also be cultural issues at play, which could act as an impediment to both. These need to be addressed, too.

The labour market is tight, so employers have to work a little harder. Thinking about how to make the workplace more attractive is something that they need to do.

Another worthy suggestion would be to oversee the creation of green apprenticeship programmes and technical green career pathways with the assistance of government.

It is worth noting that the Office for National Statistics’ regular overview of the green economy – the most recent edition of which covers 2020 – found that the green and low-carbon economy has flatlined since 2014 when the series started, both in terms of size and the overall number of people employed.

According to PwC’s research, that is poised to change and it might already have started. It found a 3.5 per cent increase in green job adverts across the electricity and gas sectors between 2020 and 2021, for example.

“The implication is an urgent need for policymakers and the energy industry to work together to promote re/upskilling of the workforce and encourage a fresh pipeline of talent or risk the successful transition to net zero by 2050,” say the research’s authors.

Quite. In the midst of grim economic tidings – growth is expected to be torpid even after the end of a forecast recession at the end of this year – there is clear opportunity here. The UK government would be smart to grasp it, although there has been a distinct lack of smarts in its halls of late. The green energy industry may end up having to attack this problem on its own. Now would be a fine time to start that process.