A new industry-wide consultation has been launched with the aim to ensure the UK has the skills for delivering a low carbon economy in the coming years
The consultation is being run by ECA, in association with the BESA, REA, STA and The Electrotechnical Skills Partnership (TESP).
It is also being supported by an array of bodies from across industry, including EnergyUK, FETA and SELECT.
A number of recent reports have indicated that hundreds of thousands of green jobs could be created in the coming years. The consultation will play a pivotal role in understanding the current state of play, and what steps businesses and the Government need to take to ensure there is a skilled workforce available.
Green recovery plans
ECA energy advisor, Luke Osborne, said: “It’s vitally important that the skillbase exists to deliver ambitious plans for a green recovery and a low carbon economy in the UK.
“This consultation aims to understand the state of play, and what actions are required to ensure skilled and competent people fill the likely major expansion in green jobs.
“ECA urges businesses from across industry to complete this important consultation.”
BESA director of Training Helen Yeulet, said: “This important survey will provide insight into the practical obstacles to solving not only the current skills crisis, but how to ensure we have the capacity to deliver a green recovery in the built environment.
“We suspect SMEs are struggling to access the Apprenticeship Levy in order to recruit or retain apprentices, so this will survey will help us gauge whether there is the appetite and budgets within businesses to enable the required upskilling and reskilling to happen.”
Dr Nina Skorupska CBE, chief executive of the REA, added: “Achieving net-zero means ensuring we have hundreds of thousands of qualified staff in the UK doing everything from installing public charging points to upgrading our gas and electricity networks.
“Whilst we have made good progress to date, the pace of deployment needs to ramp up this decade and the skills need to be in place to facilitate the transition.
“This is an important and timely survey, the outputs of which should be carefully considered by Government as they prepare the National Infrastructure Strategy and develop plans for a green economic recovery.”
