Green Jobs Taskforce sets course to create 2 million jobs by 2030

An independent group established in November by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Education, the taskforce is made up of 17 experts from across industry, academia, unions, and the education and skills sector. 

The report, released on Wednesday, has been touted as a call to action for government, business and the education sector to work together to create 2 million skilled jobs in green energy and its supply chains by 2030. 

This includes the need to collaborate on training and support for 60,000 jobs in offshore wind, 40,000 new jobs in zero emission vehicles, and 50,000 jobs in greening the UK’s buildings. 

The UK’s current count for jobs in the low carbon sector stands at 410,000. Turnover of the industry and its supply chains was estimated at £42.6 billion in 2019, with £7 billion in exports from UK companies.

The report focused particularly on skills training as the necessary path for achieving the government’s aim of net zero by 2050. Its three recommendations involved strengthening pathways into green careers, supporting the transition for workers in the high-carbon economy into green jobs, and increasing investment in the transition to net-zero.

The Taskforce also emphasised the need to see the potential in every job to become green. Not just those directly in green industries, but “the retrofitters who will make homes more comfortable and energy efficient, and car mechanics servicing electric vehicles and vans”.

UK Energy and Climate Change Minister and co-chair of the Green Jobs Taskforce Anne-Marie Trevelyan said, “As we lead the world in tackling climate change, we need to invest in the UK’s most important asset – its workforce – so that our people have the right skills to deliver a green industrial revolution and thrive in the jobs it will create.”

The government has not yet endorsed the Green Jobs Taskforce recommendations, but the report is expected to inform the Net Zero Strategy, which is set to be published ahead of the COP26 summit in November.