Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced that he will overhaul the English apprenticeship scheme to recruit young people into key sectors, including the green industry.
Following the release of a new report on the skills gaps in the UK workforce, Starmer, alongside education secretary Bridget Phillispon, announced a new growth and skills levy that will replace the existing apprenticeship levy and include new foundation apprenticeships. The training eligible for funding under the new levy will develop over time, as informed by Skills England’s judgement of which sectors need the most attention.
The announcement comes on the same day Skills England released its first report on the nation’s working skills across a variety of sectors.
Skills in the green sector
Skills England’s report highlights the importance of workers with strong green skills; the report notes that a fifth (19%) of workers will have a core role in delivering net zero, with a further fifth (21%) helping to enable the transition in other ways.
The report notes that the green transition will likely affect one in five UK jobs, with half of these workers having skills that could be in greater demand and the other half likely to require reskilling to adapt to the changing job market.
Analysis from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) estimated there were around 640,000 full time equivalent workers directly employed in green jobs, a figure 8.4% higher than the estimated 590,000 in 2021 and almost 20% higher than the estimated 535,000 estimated in 2020. Overall, the growth in green jobs was almost four times greater than the overall UK employment growth between 2020 and 2022.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) estimates that between 135,000 and 725,000 new jobs could be created in low carbon sectors such as installation, renewable energy generation and electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030.
However, the report does acknowledge the challenges in growing the skills base needed to support these new green jobs, noting that “building the supply of necessary skills will take time, with some complex occupations requiring reskilling to meet the standards needed.”
It adds: “As the economy transitions to low carbon, without action there is a risk that businesses will be unable to find staff with the necessary skills, thereby slowing down pace of business activity and growth of the green economy.”
The UK’s green skills gap
A recent report published by social media site and careers board LinkedIn revealed that globally, the green talent pool needs to double in size by 2050 for the world to have a chance at hitting its global decarbonisation goals.
The UK fared particularly badly in LinkedIn’s analysis; UK demand for green talent grew by 46% between 2023 and 2024, while supply of candidates qualified in green skills grew by only 5.3%. The benefits for those with green skills in the job market is clear; in the UK, the hiring rate for candidates with green skills is 72% higher than the overall hiring rate.
While the shortfall in green skills in the UK suggests that there is a lack of desire to gain these skills, research has indicated that this is far from the truth. A report by utility OVO Energy revealed that in the UK, only 7% of people receive green skills training at work, despite over one in five (21%) asking for such training. More concerningly, only 30% of workers have heard of the concept of green skills.
A Current± blog explored the barriers to addressing the green skills gap in the UK and Europe; read it here.
