There is no shortage of people who are interested in working in the type of field that will be crucial to deliver the energy transition of the VK, but the industry has to do more to bring young people to the sector to ensure that the country can fill its green skills gap.
This was a conclusion by speakers on a panel on the second day of Solar Media’s Clean Power 2030 peaks, aimed at hiring and employment in the British sector renewable energy. According to Chris Claydon, CEO at JTL, however, even misses the point in skills and jobs in this way.
“” What is a green job? “Is a really bad question,” said Claydon. “Are you a green employee if you are liesting a green hydrogen project one day and an offshore oil burn the next day?”
“But the skills are unchangeable,” he continued and emphasized how much of the skills underlying the jobs needed to facilitate the clean energy transition from the UK, normal construction and electric jobs that already exist, but need better guidance for the renewable energy sector.
“As an employer there is not much incentive,” says Tracey Elliott, director at Eden Sustainable, a commercial solar installer with fewer than 50 employees. “The Solar Roadmap says ‘installers, installers, installers’, but actually they are small companies that have a handful of people and they do a lot of our installation. They are on whom we trust to be our training providers, and we don’t help them.
“For us, when we have had a student, it is really very hard work, and you must have a philanthropic kind of attitude to hire a student,” continued Elliott, suggesting that the model of building skills through student programs with companies that are active in the industry is not suitable for all those companies.
Employers need confidence to hire students
“From the electric side it is no problem to attract people to become electricians. On average, we have around 10,000 applicants every year and we take around 2,000 starts every year to become students, and that is without any marketing of any description,” said Claydon, who emphasizes the strength of the student program in the UK.
This optimism reflects positive sentiments that were previously expressed during the event about the British investment landscape of renewable energy, With many who describe it as an “attractive” investment destination.
“It is not an offer of students, that is the challenge,” he continued, while he picked up the point of Elliott that employers need a “philanthropic attitude” to make this program work. “The challenge is that employers have confidence to enter into students – which is mainly the best way to get the electrical skills – and the only way is to reach the reviews to be an electrician.”
The panel members agreed that, given the size of the British green skills gorge – according to Gemma Grimes, deputy chairman of the Skills Group and the director of policy and delivery at the UK Solar Taskforce and Solar Energy UK, the VK will have to play the number of jobs in the next five years more than the number of jobs in these skills in these skills.
“Only 10% of the training in this country is financed by the government, the rest has been led by the employer, which I found quite alarming,” says Steve Thompson, group director of skills at the NOCN group, which suggests that, since much of the training is already explained by the industry, it may be on the industry in training and learning schemas.
