Filling vacancies in the British sun sector

At the end of July, Trade Association Solar Energy UK Solar Careers UK launched with the aim of leading ‘Every Person May’ to solar career.

According to the head of Solar Careers UK, Sturge Mazzocchi “is the key to this mission to ensure that employees of today and tomorrow see the solar industry as a place where they can build successful and fulfilling careers, regardless of their background”.

The Solar Careers program was an important part of the British government Sun -Route CardA paper industry paper with 72 practical measures to reach 60 GW installed solar energy by 2030.

It divided the actions into six categories, including one that focuses on skills that include 11 objectives, including improving training and mapping routes into competence.

Mark Wakeford, chairman of the board of Evoenergy and a member of the Solar Taskforce who collaborated with energy secretary Ed Miliband to develop the roadmap, says that there are two important issues when it comes to skills and personnel numbers: how to get the right number of people in the industry and how they can be qualified.

Wakeford is now chairman of the steering group for solar skills that has been appointed to deliver the use of the industry in the route map.

Setting up measurable competencies will be crucial to allow members of the industry such as Mazzocchi to go to the market with clear criteria about what is needed from potential employees.

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Set up a competent solar staff file

In addition to Solar Careers UK, the government departments for education and work and pensions are waiting for clarity about which skills are needed, so that routes for competence and careers in the British sun sector can be deported.

Wakeford says that this work on competencies “turns out to be pretty challenging – as you can imagine”.

“We are a new industry and a solar installer in one company may be there in a very different way than a solar installer in another company.”

This is especially the case because there are no universal or sector -specific qualifications, another area that hopes to tackle the working group.

Another pressure that Wakeford emphasizes is that “if there is a fire in a relatively new installation and all contractors cannot demonstrate competence, the industry is in danger”.

The Building Safety Act 2022 came into effect in October 2023, including the solar industry within the construction sector that has a legal requirement to ensure that persons in the workforce are competent. How the regulator of building safety will assess that the competence of the sun sector is something that Wakeford likes to “really encourage” to reduce the risk of reputation for industry.

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At the moment there is no universal way for an employer to determine the competence, which means that there is no way to make a record of competence at the time of employment.

“What disturbs many people in the sector is that if a fire breaks out, going back about those records will be very difficult,” says Wakeford, “especially given the vagrances of our supply chain and the small contractors in it.

To enable staff to demonstrate competence, the working group for solar skills works together with a “large platform provider” to create a way for individuals to record their skills, knowledge, experience and behavior (Scebs).

“That will then enable an employer to determine whether someone is competent, and, more importantly, allow the employer to make a record why that team was recruited.”

Build a Zonentalentpool

The Solar Careers Program is an important part of the route map, which dictates that around 43,000 job roles will be created to achieve capacity goals.

Mazzocchi said that a question he had addressed was, if the program had an influence on stimulating and catalyzing the required growth in the industry, how many candidates would be needed?

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He says that the goal is to build a talent pool on solar energy and grow (once those competencies were established). Mazzocchi has mapped that by the end of the year one of the Solar Careers programs should be the Pool 2,000 strong, “a huge goal”, grown to 4,000-6,000 before he increases.

The Talentenpool, introduced in career events, solar careers UK Outreach and social media, will enable those interested to register to receive work warnings and other communication about opportunities in the sun sector.

The Talent Pool platform will be AI-enabled, which automatically correspond to vacancies and ensure that the talent pool is very competent, but qualifies the necessary skills.

To build that talent pool, the skills Taskforce has carried out various initiatives to increase the available workforce. One side of this is Equity, Diversity and Include (EDI), a focus that has taken the Task Force, says Wakeford, because “we have a number of really passionate and very capable women in the Women in Solar Europe (Wiseu) group that can bring their expertise and offer some very fast victories”.

In addition, vocational training on vocational training in Northampton is as part of the sector-based work Academy Program (SWAP), “one of the most successful SWAP schemes that the Department for Work and Pensions ever saw”.

The government schedule offers job seekers about benefits with free training and work experience to help them gain skills for highly sought after sectors and safe work.

A crucial part of ensuring that there is volume in the potential workforce of solar energy consciousness. This is difficult to follow; Wakeford says: “How successful we are to get people in the industry and to keep them is the absolute metric.”

Although this will take time, “before we will have to look at statistics such as how many hits on the [Solar Careers UK] Website, how many colleges are involved in the career fairs, how many people appear at events and what the demand is for those things. “

A digital platform for solar skills and vacancies

The three most important goals of the Solar Careers UK program are to promote career opportunities, to support recruitment and promote training opportunities.

Mazzocchi says: “We want every person who may lead to solar career, regardless of whether they are newly qualified. If they have transferable work experience, they have transferable skills, we want to guide all those people who are interested in solar energy.”

The Solar Careers UK team, together with the steering committee, has the six most common roles in the sector to be:

The website now contains job descriptions for four rolls of sector roles: small-scale solar PV designer and installer, small-scale solar PV project manager, commercial and industrial solar PV project manager, Site technician on Utility scale.

Routes for competence are published for all but one (still to be established for small-scale PV designer and installer of solar energy).

The program has two types of operations: digital and personal. Solar -Energy Portal The Launch of the Career Hub Event Earlier this year in London.

Another element will ensure that geographical spread to attract candidates from the locations that the most sun skills need, usually those in the vicinity of large -scale solar energy plants.

Interactive job cards will be available, as below, with priority role advertisements.

As soon as the fundamental work has been done, Mazzocchi says that the program wants to continue to grow and adjust to meet the needs of the solar industry, guaranteeing a competent and diverse personnel.

“The next part is to be ready for expansion.”