In conversation: how the North East can meet the demand for thousands of new, skilled workers

A new study has shown that up to 80,000 skilled workers will be needed in the North East and Yorkshire if the UK is to reach its net zero target by 2030.

How the region can meet this demand and what opportunities will these roles bring for people in the North East? Anthea Pratt, Skills Programme Manager, and David Lynch, Energy Innovation Partnership Manager at the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (North East LEP), explain.

What’s the research that’s been carried out and why was it commissioned?

David: As we know, the UK aims to decarbonise homes by 2050. That means we need to decarbonise around 20,000 homes a week – at the moment, that’s the number we’re achieving in a year.

It’s clear we need to plug this gap and get more people into the energy sector, working on retrofitting properties with low carbon technologies like heat pumps. So what we wanted to do for the North East is make sure we’re in a place to capitalise on this opportunity, and to do that we need to understand the types of skills that will be required, what training we’re currently providing and how we can meet any shortfalls.

What has emerged from the assessment?

David: That it’s a huge opportunity.

Post-pandemic, we’ve seen some sectors retract, and people have been burnt by experiences of redundancy or insecure employment. Whereas energy is a sector that’s growing and the need for this very large number of skilled workers presents a huge opportunity for people in the North East.

Anthea: And if we’re to bring new people into this sector to fill future vacancies, we need the colleges, universities, training providers and assessors in place. These come first.

What kinds of skills are going to be needed?

David: It’s not just skills like installation and manufacturing, it’s also things like digital skills and data analytics. We’ll need people who can work as advisors, helping people make the right choices for their individual property and helping them to navigate the financial side of things.

Anthea: One of the skillsets that needs to increase the most is painting and decorating. We currently have 320 people with painting and decorating skills working in domestic retrofit and that will need to increase to 14,000. People might not think of this as a skill needed in the green economy but we need to change that perception.

What’s going to happen now, to make sure these opportunities are made available for people in the North East?

Anthea: We’ve created a 10 year action plan and are putting it in place now. We’re working with training providers to scale up training provision in our region. We’ve already been awarded £2.4 million to deliver green skills boot camps and in addition to this we’re testing new types of training provision – new qualifications and new ways of delivering them. We’ll be able to share more about this very soon.

David: As well as training provision, we need to think about how we attract people to these roles – both young people entering the workforce, and older people who might be looking to retrain or move from another area of work. Can we give them the confidence they need in the energy sector and help them feel excited about working in a role which will genuinely improve people’s lives?

Working in this sector, you can help people avoid debt and fuel poverty. You can help make sure people have warm, dry homes. It’s about social equality and I’ve seen how this work can change people’s lives.

Details of the Domestic Retrofit Skills Needs Assessment are available on the North East Evidence Hub. The assessment was commissioned by the North East LEP and the North East and Yorkshire Net Zero Hub.