What is the green skills gap (and why does it matter)?
Posted on: 2 October, 2024
The built environment is in dire need of sustainability talent. Here are 10 skills that can help close the growing green talent gap.
The UK is in a race to decarbonise its operations by 2050. In light of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), increasing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) regulations and penalties, and an incoming wave of consumers and job candidates that prioritise sustainability, environmental action has become a non-negotiable for modern businesses.
However, demand for workers with sustainability expertise is outpacing the supply of talent. This shortage has been termed ‘the green skills gap’.
What exactly is the green skills gap?
The green skills gap is the shortage of workers needed to fill incoming jobs created by the green transition – a shift away from reliance on fossil fuels and towards a sustainable future.
According to the World Economic Forum, the global number of green roles has grown 8% per year for the last five years. However, there aren’t enough employees and candidates with the skills needed to fulfil these crucial roles – the number of people listing green skills in their LinkedIn profiles only grew 6% over the same period, according to LinkedIn research.
As an example, the UK needs 400,000 jobs filled to help drive new energy sectors, yet many estimates have highlighted a shortage of around 200,000 workers with the appropriate expertise and knowledge required.
Learn more: The issue of coal consumption
The need for sustainability knowledge and expertise also stretches to other industries and business functions. To keep up the with the latest regulations, combat the climate crisis and help organisations stay ahead of the curve, recruiters are looking for sustainability competencies across a wide range of roles, departments and functions.
The green skills shortage is just one example of the various talent gaps that have emerged in the last decade. Other notable examples of gaps include technical skills, soft skills (e.g. emotional intelligence), hard skills (such as analytics and data processing), and leadership competencies.
Where did this shortage of talent come from?
Skills gaps are typically created when technological advancement outpaces organisational evolution. For instance, the emergence of artificial intelligence in the last year has led many businesses to identify a lack of expertise in this area in line with business priorities and projects.
Learn more: Built environment careers and the advantages of a vocational degree
There are other reasons for the emergence of talent gaps, including:
- High employee turnover
- Ineffective recruitment
- Inadequate training
- Institutional education failures
In the case of sustainability expertise and green skills in the built environment, there are five key issues that have left our sector short on talent:
Lack of awareness
The green skills gap is arguably one of the most critical issues we face, with potentially serious ramifications for the environment. Despite this, awareness and interest in green roles and the deficit of green skills and expertise is low.
A report by Public First that ran a national poll of young people aged 16-25 found that terms such as net zero ‘remain poorly understood’ and most young people ‘have little sense of how net zero will transform the economy and what kind of jobs it will create’. Even more worryingly, the same report found that young people ‘are less likely to be interested’ in the green jobs that will be most needed in the coming years.
Age
With 41% of construction professionals predicted to have retired by 2031, along with the fallout of Brexit, the UK will need 937,000 new recruits in construction and trades by 2032. This is a significant issue, but it wouldn’t be so significant if the battle for new talent wasn’t so competitive.
Across industries like building surveying and construction management there simply aren’t enough new professionals currently entering the industry, and even then, the likelihood they’ll be trained or upskilled on green skills is often slim. Of the 937,000 new workers needed, 244,000 need to be qualified apprentices in order to plug the skills gap appropriately.
Learn more: Making a business case for sustainability: why now is the time to act
Social class, background and gender
A common perception of green jobs is that they’re only achievable for people who have gone through university, but this isn’t the case. This perception means young people and those from lower social classes/education levels feel less confident that they can be recruited for these positions, limiting the number of applicants from these backgrounds and, thus, the volume of talent available for green roles.
The gender gap is another well-documented issue in our sector. Just 15.8% of the UK construction workforce is female, with the built environment often still perceived as a ‘male-dominated’ area to work in. However, while industries like real estate have a far better gender split, the green skills gap could actually perpetuate this disparity across the sector.
Public First found in their poll that young women ‘are less aware of’ and ‘less interested’ in green jobs. A shortage of female talent in the sector means a shortage of green skills, sustainability expertise and professionals to upskill in the latest sustainability standards and practices.
Learn more: How higher education can encourage and support more women into the built environment
Niche
Another factor that has led to the green skills gap is a focus on technical skills that fails to capture the complex demands of sustainability.
Every stage of the building lifecycle from design and planning to surveying, construction and demolition/refurbishment has an impact on – and subsequently the ability to address – the carbon footprint of a project, be it operational or embodied carbon.
While the focus in the built environment has been on technical skills derived from Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects in order to take advantage of emerging and innovative technologies, these aren’t the only competencies needed throughout the lifecycle. Just as important as technical skills are leadership, communication and critical thinking skills that can help make sustainability happen at different organisational levels.
Disillusionment
Sustainability needs action on the part of all individuals, organisations and governments, but the fear of climate change and the anxiety it causes can often lead to inaction and disillusionment.
Learn more: Eco-anxiety: what is it and how can you combat it?
News coverage of climate change and its impact is often extremely bleak, and can lead people to feeling powerless, hopeless and resigned to the planet’s fate. These fears and doubts can deter people from pursuing a career in sustainability, as they feel like they can’t make a significant difference.
The truth is that we still have a chance to reverse some of the damage and avoid the biggest consequences of climate change. What’s more, as a sector responsible for around 40% of global CO2 emissions, the built environment provides a very real opportunity to make a difference.
10 green skills the built environment needs
The built environment is particularly in need of sustainability expertise. As a sector that’s responsible for around 40% of annual CO2 emissions, work needs to be done fast to reduce its environmental impact by the UK’s 2050 Net Zero ambitions and align itself with a greener future.
Here are 10 green skills that are in high demand across the sector:
1. An adaptable mindset
As a relatively new field in a mainstream business context, there’s no ‘best practice’ for sustainability. This makes it an avenue full of potential risk, meaning having the ability to adapt to navigate unprecedented challenges is of high importance in this field.
Some of challenges businesses may encounter in implementing their sustainability initiatives include:
- Resistance to change
- Evolving legislation and regulation
- Operational silos
- Challenges with data collation
- Lack of engagement and buy-in
2. Sustainability literacy
Sustainability doesn’t stay still – it’s a continuously shifting discipline that requires more than keeping up with current events to understand in detail. Sustainability literacy – the theoretical knowledge to understand and articulate the interdependency between the environment and humanity – is a vital skill for businesses looking to shape the future of the green economy rather than simply following the crowd.
As an industry with a significant influence on climate change, this knowledge is needed at the centre of decision making and at an interdisciplinary level across teams and personnel.
Learn more: Why sustainability literacy is in such high demand
3. Critical thinking
Critical thinking is an essential component of sustainable development. Along with being able to understand and articulate sustainability across different disciplines and applications, business leaders and key figures with problem-solving, decision-making and long-term strategic expertise are needed in organisations to help make sustainability initiatives and targets a reality.
4. The ability to influence others
As with any initiative that requires a fundamental change in thinking, sustainability is bound to attract opposition and resistance at multiple levels. Unless the benefits of these transitions are explained effectively to people affected by them, it’s unlikely they’ll be engaged and ready to embrace new ways of working.
5. Green retrofitting
Retrofitting has emerged as viable solution for the challenge of reducing carbon emissions, particularly in housing. However, there’s a shortage of the necessary competencies to insulate walls and introduce technologies like heat pumps. With the government placing heavy emphasis on getting millions of homes up to appropriate energy usage standards in the next decade, retrofitting expertise is in extremely high demand.
Learn more: To retrofit or not to retrofit: what’s the debate around the M&S Oxford Street demolition?
6. Digital skills such as energy modelling and analysis
Sustainability is in competition with other business functions and industries for a small pool of digital talent. Today’s new buildings are under greater pressure to meet increasingly strict energy efficiency standards from the government, but thanks to software tools, we can now more accurately evaluate a building’s energy performance (and identify opportunities to conserve energy) than ever before. Unfortunately, there simply aren’t enough professionals with the expertise to utilise these technologies and reap the benefits in the current marketplace.
Learn more: Technology will define the future of sustainability
7. Waste management
Earlier this year, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) released a report that revealed a growing skills and labour shortage within waste and recycling. According to the report, the sector ‘is not often seen as an attractive option for future careers’ and a ‘lack of understanding’ of what it delivers and the breadth of roles available is harming its ability to procure talent.
Along with needing more workers involved in the collection, sorting and recovery of materials, the report identified talent shortages in:
- Consultancy and professional services
- Communication and behavioural change
- Design
- Facilities management
- Business modelling
- Infrastructure development
8. Reporting, compliance and monitoring
With new ESG reporting requirements and legislation like the Green Claims Code coming into play, organisations in the built environment are now at risk of significant financial penalties if they fail to meet sustainability targets or misrepresent their environmental activities. This has led to an increase in demand for monitoring skills and an understanding of the technical and legal aspects of business.
Learn more: How to select the right ESG goals and targets for your business
9. New building techniques
To address our sector’s contribution to global emissions, knowledge and experience with new building techniques throughout the entire building lifecycle are in high demand. In the design phase, understanding how to utilise innovative technologies like digital twins and parametric design will help identify ways to minimise environmental impact early in construction projects, while n experience with techniques like retrofitting, prefabrication and lean construction will be vital in the construction phase.
10. Enabling cultural change
Sustainability requires buy-in from throughout an organisation to make it a success – it can’t be confined to small silos and pockets of innovation. This is often the reason why so many sustainability initiatives fail to meet their objectives. Along with being able to influence others, having the leadership and communication skills to foster change and accountability on a large scale are crucial competencies in this field.
8 ways to close the green skills gap
Here are 8 recommendations for how the built environment can tackle the skills gap across three different dimensions of influence – government, organisations, and individuals.
Governments
1. Offer grants and initiatives to encourage upskilling
It’s crucial that the government continues to invest in upskilling and reskilling that aligns with the competencies needed for a net zero future. Along with training in the latest technologies and sustainable innovations, interpersonal and communication skills like leadership and management need to be prioritised in our educational provision.
In 2023, the UK government launched a £165 million fund to transform local skills and deliver new courses in subjects such as green construction and carbon capture. Similar funding, loans, grants and meaningful incentives can help upskill industry professionals and teachers, align apprenticeships with the green skills shortage and further integrate sustainability into the education curriculum.
2. Continue to champion apprenticeships
A third of the UK’s construction and trades workforce is aged over 50 and expected to retire in the next decade. Apprenticeships will be an invaluable resource for developing future generations of talent and play a key role in helping the built environment adjust to a mass exodus of professionals from the sector in the coming years.
Aligning apprenticeship standards and Level 1 to Level 6 qualifications with sustainability competencies can help to close the talent gap and ensure green skills are a bedrock of future skills development. Crucially, interpersonal skills like communication and leadership need to have as much emphasis as more technical areas like sustainability literacy and digital proficiency to ensure green practices aren’t confined to niche areas and can be imbued across teams, organisations and industries successfully.
3. Further publicise the need for green skills and sustainability expertise
One of the biggest challenges our sector faces in overcoming the green skills gap is the lack of awareness of the issue. Research by Public First identified that terms like net zero ‘remain poorly understood’ among young generations, and that there’s ‘little sense’ of how net zero will transform the economy and actually create jobs.
Conducting further research, both into the urgent need for green skills and the opportunities and roles that will be available, will give businesses, job applicants and students a clearer idea of how they can get involved and what career pathways they can pursue. What’s more, using more direct, jargon-free language that goes beyond net zero will help to increase interest among future generations that aren’t familiar with governmental and sustainability terminology.
Organisations
4. Increase hiring diversity
Despite accounting for half of the UK’s population, women remain a minority in the built environment – just 13% of professionals in the sector are female. It’s not just in gender that industries like construction are lagging behind, either – just 6% of people in the construction workforce come from ethnic minority backgrounds, with this figure even smaller among specialisms like landscape professionals (0.6%).
Learn more: Giving the construction industry a second chance – a Q&A with UCEM Apprentice Jodi-Ann Morgan
Clearly, there’s a wealth of talent that businesses are failing to capitalise on. Adopting more diverse hiring practices that eliminate bias, championing the success stories of individuals from underrepresented backgrounds and putting forward professionals for senior positions of influence can increase the level of diversity and representation in the sector and subsequently the breadth of the talent pool.
Similarly, conducting outreach activities to schools and increasing awareness of the built environment can help more individuals consider a career in areas like construction and surveying.
5. Offer upskilling and training opportunities
The priorities of the modern workforce have changed. In the aftermath of COVID-19 and The Great Resignation, today’s employees care as much about experience and development as they do salary and benefits. According to a survey by Pew Research, 63% of employees who left their jobs in 2021 pointed to a lack of career advancement opportunities as a reason for their departure. To put this into context, the same percentage (63%) in this survey cited salary.
The modern workforce is also less loyal to their employers, with a Joblist survey finding that 73% of employees would consider leaving their jobs if the right offer came along – even if they weren’t looking for a job.
Opportunities for development, progression and advancement are key to improving retention, and upskilling is an effective way to facilitate this. Aligning these with the needs of a net zero future will give employees transferable and in-demand skills that can secure their future career and employability for years to come, whilst simultaneously helping organisations plug skills deficits.
Learn more: How apprenticeships can upskill your workforce for the future
6. Be open and transparent around green practices
Just as today’s workforce place emphasis on development opportunities, they also value transparency and environmental action.
Rather than trying to exaggerate the impact of their initiatives or the scope of their actions, organisations should aim for transparency when it comes to publicising and sharing the sustainability practices they take part in.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives are complex undertakings that often fail to meet expectations – businesses would be better served setting realistic and achievable goals rather than creating lofty ambitions that, while intended to impress young generations, fall foul of greenwashing.
Learn more: 8 types of greenwashing (and how to spot them)
Individuals
7. Pursue education in green skills
The impacts of climate change are crucial issues in the mind of today’s customers, job applicants and young generations. A career in the built environment is an opportunity to make a tangible difference in how we achieve net zero and both mitigate and adapt to the impacts of a shifting climate.
For individuals that want to play a part in achieving net zero, exploring courses, apprenticeships and professional development opportunities in industries like construction and real estate can be the key to having an impact. These skills are not only in high demand among employers but are also transferable, and can open up opportunities in their existing career.
Similarly, if employees have access to learning and development opportunities, focusing on green skills and sustainability training can provide opportunities for career advancement and development, both in the short and long term.
8. Seek out companies that have a good sustainability policy
Sustainability is just as much a commercial movement as an environmental one, and it can provide a raft of benefits for businesses, from an improved bottom line and cost-savings to greater customer and employee attraction and retention.
Organisations have recognised how much importance today’s workforce in particular places on sustainability. Research from Deloitte found that 40% of Gen Z would go as far as switching jobs if they had concerns over the environmental activities of their employer.
Today’s workforce must continue to be discerning when it comes to choosing the employers they want to work for. Reviewing an employer’s sustainability policies and credentials (and keeping an eye out for any examples of greenwashing) will reward organisations that genuinely want to make a difference to the environment. These businesses will also likely offer opportunities to develop green skills and sustainability expertise.
Final thoughts
Yes, overcoming the green skills gap and weathering the exodus of professionals in the sector is an enormous challenge for the built environment, but it’s also an opportunity. There’s significant pressure on industries like construction and surveying to take action and address the sustainability of their methods and processes, but far from being an insurmountable obstacle, instead it should be perceived as an exciting chance for young professionals and people with a passion for the environment to make a difference.
The skills listed above are in high demand – don’t miss the opportunity to capitalise on this shortage and place yourself at the forefront of change.
Sustainability isn’t a passing trend – it’s here to stay and is constantly evolving. If you want to inspire and action change in your career, UCEM’s MSc Innovation in Sustainable Built Environments will give you the skills you need, both now and in the future.
Find out more: MSc Innovation in Sustainable Built Environments – University College of Estate Management
