/ https://www.nesta.org.uk/data-visualisation-and-interactive/measuring-regional-skills-mismatches/

The UK government today (12 November 2020) set a clear ambition to support 2 million green jobs by 2030, launching a new Green Jobs Taskforce to set the direction for the job market as we transition to a high-skill, low carbon economy.

The Ten Point Plan demonstrates the UK’s significant and continuing commitment to tackling greenhouse gas emissions. We have led the G7 countries in cutting emissions since 1990. As President-Designate for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties 26 (COP26) | This year, our Ten Point Plan will lay the foundations for a Green Industrial Revolution. We will start by supporting 90,000 jobs across the UK within this Parliament, and up to 250,000 by 2030. Engineers, fitters, construction workers and many others will be engaged in harnessing British science and technology to create and use clean energy and forge great new industries that export to new markets around the world.

Our Lifetime Skills Guarantee will equip people with the training they need to take advantage of these opportunities. | | | | | | | | | WHAT THE GREEN REVOLUTION CAN LEARN FROM THE IT REVOLUTION: A green entrepreneurial state - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/sites/public-purpose/files/iipp_policybrief_08_green_entreprenurial.pdf | A green transition requires an economy-wide transformation that galvanises investment and innovation across all sectors. It must also be governed in ways that asks questions about both the rate of change, and also the direction of change, and how that direction can produce not only sustainable growth but inclusive growth. Growth which provides the opportunity to battle climate change and to ensure all people can benefit from the ‘green good life’. | | | | | | | | | | Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/net-zero-strategy | Our strategy for net zero is to lead the world in ending our contribution to climate change, while turning this mission into the greatest opportunity for jobs and prosperity for our country since the industrial revolution. | Through our Ten Point Plan we have already attracted over £5.8 billion of new inward investment in just over ten months, and will create and support hundreds of thousands of new high skilled, high wage green jobs.

We want to build back better from the pandemic by building back greener and levelling up our country with new high skilled, high wage, sustainable jobs in every part of our United Kingdom | | | | | | | | | Experimental estimates of green jobs, UK: 2023

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/experimentalestimatesofgreenjobsuk/2023 | | | | | Using the industry approach, employment in green jobs was estimated to be around 526,000 full-time equivalents (FTE) in the UK in 2020, compared with 507,000 FTE in 2015. | | | | | | Green Jobs foundation - state of the nation https://greenjobsfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Green-Jobs-Foundation-State-of-the-Nation-UK-2023-Report.pdf | | What is levelling up? In February 2022 the British government released a white paper called Levelling Up in the United Kingdom. Broadly, levelling up, a phrase first articulated in this current context by the government in 2019, means reducing regional economic, social and infrastructure inequality across the UK by boosting opportunities and facilities in areas that lack them.

Although the government has not set overall targets for the number of jobs created by levelling up initiatives, by increasing private sector productivity and investing in infrastructure and services, plus having strong focus on new job skills courses, there is potential for the agenda to lead to a huge amount of new jobs. The government has, however, set an ambition for the UK to create two million full-time equivalent green jobs by 2030, as it aims to achieve the country’s zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2050. | On the UK government’s online Education Hub in 2022 a green job was defined as a role with focus on “restoring the natural environment – whether that be in companies that create green goods like electric vehicles or companies that work to reduce the use of natural resources and produce clean energy.” Jobs like these have had more attention from British authorities recently, with the government launching a Green Jobs Taskforce in November 2020 to help deliver on its Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. | The report found that the amount of green jobs – roles that (directly or indirectly) contribute positively to the environment – being offered in the UK is rising sharply: a trend expected to continue. This is positive news for the government’s drive to have the country reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, create two million new green jobs by 2030, and stimulate production and jobs in areas deemed to be most in need of attention from the UK levelling up agenda. However, there are still green jobs skills shortages across the country that need to be addressed by more education and training opportunities, if success is to be achieved in all these areas.

This report is based on research by labour market analytics company Lightcast, which found that 280,589 green jobs were advertised in the UK in 2022, representing a 43 percent year on year rise

This huge rise is likely largely driven by existing roles becoming green jobs, as companies transition to deal with pressure from authorities, customers and investors to be more sustainable and contribute to the net zero drive.

This green job creation is happening across the country. The government divided regions of the UK into three priority groups for the levelling up agenda, outlined in its February 2022 white paper based on which areas needed most investment and improvement. The size of the share of all jobs being green jobs was not significantly different between the three regional categories, suggesting that while it’s good that green job creation is contributing to jobs on offer in economically challenged areas, even more focus could be placed on these areas for green job creation. | There were more green jobs advertised in the country in 2022 than there were people in green jobs in total in 2020: 207,800 for the latter figure, according to the definition used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS)

Office for National Statistics (17 February 2022). Low carbon and renewable energy economy, UK: 2020. www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/finalestimates/2020

With 43 percent more UK green jobs being advertised in 2022 than in 2021, this large year on year rise suggests that green job creation is accelerating quickly. We expect this to continue as the government attempts to induce the creation of two million new jobs by 2030 and have the UK reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

We believe that most new green job postings analysed were the result of openings related to existing roles having a more sustainability and environmental focus, such as renewable energy engineers pivoting to green tech, rather than brand new green jobs being created from scratch. As more green technology focused companies gear up in production and rollout stages beyond research and development, we expect more new jobs to be created using emerging skills or by repurposing skills from one industry to another, which will help maintain the high rate of green job postings | As part of its levelling up agenda, the UK government designated three priority levels that each local authority in the country was placed in, with priority one being most in need of investment and improvement, and priority three the least. 123 local authorities were in each of the priority one and two groups, with 122 in priority three group

There was not a significant difference between the percentage of green jobs advertised in 2022 out of all jobs advertised for a local authority area, between the three levelling up priority groups. For the priority one group the figure was 2.1 percent, for priority two it was 2.4 percent and for priority three it was 2.1 percent.

The percentage of green jobs advertised in 2022, out of all green jobs, was not significantly different between the three levelling up priority levels of UK regions. Positively, this shows that the areas of the UK that are deemed to be in the highest need of economic stimulation and job creation, in relation to levelling up, do not appear to be being left behind in this surge of green job creation. However, this data also suggests that more could be done to focus green job creation in regions in the levelling up priority one section, that are most in need of attention | Climate Emergency UK data18 showed that in the UK combined authorities offered 289 courses related to green jobs and skills in 2022, with a total of around 13,000 participants. Courses included those on retro-fitting domestic and commercial buildings for greener technology, electric vehicle battery installation, plus heat pump and electric vehicle charging point installation

There should be a rise in the amount of courses offered by UK combined authorities related to green jobs and skills, which in 2022 was 289, hosting 13,000 participants. Courses like these tend to be free to attend and don’t usually last longer than a few weeks, so have huge potential to steer more people towards green jobs, including many in low-income and skill level brackets. T

Scotland plus England’s South West and North East were the UK regions that had the highest proportions of green jobs advertised in 2022, within all jobs advertised in their regions. The green job share percentage rises gradually and fairly evenly from the lowest percentage share region, London, up to Scotland, suggesting that new green jobs are spread around the UK relatively evenly in terms of their share of the overall regional job market. - Source: Lightcast, job postings data | The government, via its Green Task Force, has set an ambition for the UK to host two million newly-created green jobs by 2030. While the current figure of three percent of job postings in 2022 being green jobs may not sound particularly high, considering the large rise from the 2021 figure, there’s reason to be optimistic that the two million green job ambition could be realised. | | | Green Jobs Taskforce report - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/green-jobs-taskforce-report | Reaching net zero by 2050 and delivering the UK’s broader environmental goals will have a transformative impact on the economy, shifting the demand for goods, services and skills over the next thirty years and beyond.

This section sets out the evidence on the opportunities and risks from the transition globally, before discussing the impact on the UK’s workforce, sectors, and regions that will likely be most affected.

A crucial aspect of this transition is centred on people. IEA modelling suggests it will bring substantial new employment opportunities, supporting about 14 million jobs globally by 2030 in the IEA’s pathway for decarbonising the global energy system.

This is due to an expansion of new low carbon activities and investment in clean energy.25 The IEA considers that the transition will likely involve some job losses primarily in fossil fuel technologies, and notes that “it will be vital to minimise hardships associated with these disruptions, such as by retraining workers, locating new clean energy facilities in heavily affected areas wherever possible, and providing regional aid”

More recently, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) commissioned research that modelled economic opportunities emerging from accelerating the pace of emissions reduction to meet the UK’s sixth carbon budget and net zero. The research found that this will result in an increase of UK GDP of around 2 to 3%, and about 300,000 additional jobs by 2050. These opportunities are linked to investment in green technology. | According to the Place-based Climate Action Network’s Just Transition Jobs, one in five jobs in the UK (approximately 6.3 million workers) will require skills which may experience demand growth (approximately 10% of UK jobs) or reduction (approximately 10%) as a result of the transition to net zero. The latter will likely need reskilling, upskilling, or to use their current skills differently These impacts will vary across the economy. https://pcancities.org.uk/tracking-local-employment-green-economy-pcan-just-transition-jobs-tracker

Research by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training suggests that the greening of our economy will influence skills demand in three main ways: structural changes that will lead to increased demand for some occupations and decreases for others; new economic activity that will generate new occupations, with a subsequent need for new skills, qualifications and training frameworks; and, many existing occupations and sectors that will experience 'greening' changes within their jobs, which should require adjustments to current training and qualification frameworks. | | | | | | | | | “Green jobs” update, current and upcoming work: March 2023 - https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/greenjobscurrentandupcomingwork/march2023 | | | | | | | | | | | Experimental estimates of green jobs, UK: 2023 - https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/experimentalestimatesofgreenjobsuk/2023 | | | | | | | | | | | Net zero final report - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/net-zero-review-final-report | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |