Will Taylor, Principal Consultant (Retrofit), Talan UK
Britain has hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people and a clean energy sector desperate for workers. The government’s new youth employment drive could finally connect the two — if it’s done right.
The government has recently announced a major employment drive to unlock 200,000 jobs and apprenticeships for the next generation. It is a welcome step, arriving at a moment when youth unemployment remains stubbornly high and confidence in the traditional graduate pathway is waning. Yet as graduates compete for a shrinking pool of entry-level jobs, clean energy, one of the fastest-growing parts of the economy, is struggling to find skilled workers.
A credible alternative to the crowded graduate pathway
For decades, the UK has encouraged ever‑greater participation in higher education and until recently, graduates continued to enjoy a wage premium. That pattern is now breaking down, and as the graduate workforce has expanded, the number of well‑paid graduate roles has not kept pace, eroding starting salaries and blurring the distinction between graduate and non‑graduate work.
At the same time, the clean energy sector is expanding rapidly. The government’s Clean Energy Jobs Plan projects that the clean energy workforce will almost double this decade, reaching around 860,000 jobs by 2030. The Warm Homes Plan alone is estimated to create up to 9,000 new jobs. Many of these roles, from heat pump installation and retrofit to electricity networks and offshore wind, do not require university degrees. They demand technical skill, vocational training and practical expertise.
Real wage gains, real regional growth
Crucially, green jobs are not just growing, they also pay well. Roles in wind, nuclear and electricity networks advertise average salaries of over £50,000, well above the UK average of £37,000. In the clean heating sector alone, Talan’s analysis on behalf of the Wolseley Group shows that installers who upskill to include heat pumps can earn over £9,000 more per year than those fitting gas boilers. Over the next decade, that can amount to over £100,000 in additional earnings.
Just as importantly, these jobs are inherently local. Our research found that these jobs can be found in all areas of the country, meaning that everywhere can benefit, with huge implications for the UK’s economic growth.
The bottleneck holding everything back
Yet despite rising demand, progress is being constrained by a growing skills bottleneck. In key areas such as heat pumps, current training rates are only sufficient if deployment ambitions remain modest. For example, Talan research for the South West Net Zero Hub found that at current rates of deployment (at the time of publication in 2024) it would take hundreds of years to decarbonise homes in the South West.
This pattern is repeated at a national scale. Talan’s analysis for Heat Pump Association UK shows that the current training rate in the installer sector is sufficient to meet workforce demand up to 2031. But, if heat pump installations are to meet the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation of 1.5 million installs in 2035, the training rate for installers must increase.
Targeted interventions from the Government such as the Heat Training Grant and the Warm Homes Skills Programme are necessary, but they’re not sufficient. Intermediate level apprenticeship starts are declining as a share of overall apprenticeships. Without urgent investment in vocational routes into the green economy, the UK risks simultaneously failing its climate targets and its young people. Skills shortages are already slowing delivery, pushing up costs and delaying projects in an ageing construction sector already starved of workers .
Government can do more. By making training and upskilling a consistent part of social value requirements for contractors delivering public funding and ensuring that apprenticeships and CITB funding is spent wisely the sector can push funding into training for much needed roles. By driving the development of national occupational standards for key retrofit roles and creating apprenticeships where there are gaps the sector can ensure robust and consistent training opportunities are available to everyone.
This is the missed connection that policy must urgently address. The government’s new youth employment drive has the architecture to unlock thousands of green apprenticeships and skilled trade careers. What is needed now is deliberate alignment, directing these funds toward sectors where demand is growing, where that growth is aligned to government policy, where wages reward skill, and where geography serves those left behind. The clean energy economy is ready. The workforce policy now needs to catch up.
