Why Global Mobility Will Make or Break the UK’s Green Energy Transition
Whether driving green innovation or expanding clean energy projects, the UK needs a skilled global workforce to power the green transition.
02 October, 2024
We are living through one of the most turbulent periods of modern history — a time of enormous political contradiction, when the needs of the much-heralded ‘green industrial revolution’ must be weighed against the growing anti-immigrant sentiment in Western nations.
The UK’s new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, unveiled his plan to turn Great Britain into a “clean energy superpower”. The ambition is awesome, to say the least. A whole new nationally-owned energy company will be created for this endeavour: GB Energy, a public company dedicated to achieving the UK’s Net Zero target of 2050.
This great industrial upheaval will require a radical restructuring of the economy. Whole sectors must be upskilled and the national grid significantly enlarged, and we’ll have to build electric car battery factories and more wind and solar farms.
Only, there’s a problem: the UK doesn’t have the domestic capacity to become a clean energy superpower — at least, not in the autumn of 2024. Because domestic clean energy workers are in critically short supply.
The Skills Shortage Hindering Progress
It’s confusing to read the Home Secretary’s plans to impose further restrictions on the hiring of foreign engineers and IT professionals—the very people this ‘green and pleasant land’ needs for a green industrial revolution.
One hears much of how the renewable energy transition will create jobs. Indeed, Sir Keir Starmer claimed that GB Energy alone would create 650,000, while the National Grid estimates that 400,000 workers will be required to build the UK’s new Net Zero infrastructure.
Some point to the transferable skills of the 270,000 workers in the oil and gas sector, but 20% of them are expected to retire by 2030, leaving a paltry 216,000 to plug the remaining hole in this leaking ship. And then we have the engineers, the people expected to build this new, green infrastructure, of which the UK has a shortage of nearly 60,000.
Any green industrial revolution requires a highly skilled, highly educated workforce. The most in-demand green tech jobs, unlike those of most traditional engineers, usually require university degrees, but the number of UK students getting degrees in green energy subjects is declining.
UK universities do little to encourage students to take up STEM subjects, with experts warning that the high expenses for science, IT and engineering degrees make universities more likely to prefer high-fee-paying foreign students over their domestic peers.
Political Challenges to Global Mobility
This problem isn’t confined to the UK, of course; it’s global. The executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said that the number of jobs requiring at least one green skill grew by 9.2% this last year, while the number of workers with those skills has grown by 5.4%. In other words, the disparity between the demand for green workers and their supply presents an unworkable contradiction at the heart of all Net Zero targets.
196 countries signed the Paris Agreement, all setting a goal to limit increases in average temperature to below two degrees above pre-industrial levels. 90 countries already have Net Zero targets — and the market has responded accordingly. Investment into clean energy has grown by 40% in 2 years, according to IEA’s 2023 report. No wonder new advances are opening up all the time. Green molecules. Fusion technology. Carbon capture. You name it.
Of course, fighting climate change is only half the story. As MacMillan said, “Events, dear boy, events” govern political choices, not idealism.
Western nations, by and large, depend on foreign energy sources. The UK, for instance, imports more energy than it exports. And if the last four years have taught us anything, it is the vulnerability of global supply chains.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in the spring of 2022 and the subsequent embargo of Western nations on Russia sent domestic oil prices skyrocketing. More recently, owing to the conflict in the Red Sea, container ships were forced to skirt the Suez Canal, all driving prices through the roof.
Global conflict, in other words, has lit hot coals under the feet of our political leaders. Achieving Net Zero — in other words, building clean and local energy sources — has never been more pressing than now, something noted in Labour’s proposal: Making Britain a clean energy superpower.
And, yet, achieving Net Zero seems today an impossible goal without the help of global mobility. Because, whether it’s the new Offshore Wind Sector Deal or achieving Net Zero by 2050, the UK needs to import the necessary workers to plug the gaping structural holes in our visionary but incapable economies. Because we cannot build these things without help.
The Importance of Foreign Talent for the UK
The UK’s lack of welders and engineers is nothing new, but since Brexit, the problem has worsened. When the UK was a member of the EU, we could plug the labour gaps in the energy sector with European workers. Leaving the Schengen Area led to demand growing to unsustainable levels—a stunning 71% jump in demand for foreign engineers.
The truth is that STEM courses are just more popular in other parts of the world. South Korea, Japan, Iran, Russia and the USA have the highest number of STEM graduates globally. And, while the EU itself accounts for 10% of all renewable jobs across the world, India and the US each boast 7%.
We can plug the labour gaps quickly with foreign welders, engineers, solar photovoltaic installers and wind turbine technicians — which is why the number of EU and non-EU engineers in the UK has increased. It’s important to note that the UK wouldn’t have achieved a 56% low-carbon source of electricity if it wasn’t for foreign talent.
Let’s be clear: the UK isn’t alone in its inability to build a green energy infrastructure off the backs of its domestic workforce. Even France, once famed for its nuclear sector, has relied on foreign specialists since the 1980s. It became so bad that, in November 2022, France had to fly in numerous foreign welders, pipe-fitters and boiler-makers in a last-minute attempt to plug the shortages.
If all of this is true, why does the Labour Government want to limit the country’s reliance on foreign engineers and IT professionals at such a critical juncture in its history?
The Impact of Visa Regulations on Hiring
The new Home Secretary wants to see a tightening of already restrictive visa rules for hiring high-skilled foreign talent, with an emphasis on making it harder for UK companies to import engineers and IT professionals —salary thresholds may be raised. And incentives given to employers to recruit from its domestic workforce.
Not only did the last government raise the skilled threshold, but it made it harder for skilled workers to bring their family members, which makes it more unlikely for people to come.
Such a proposal seems crazily counterintuitive, but on closer inspection, there’s more at play — this is politics, after all.
Starmer’s government wants to win over the more nativist elements of his own party — the likes of the influential ‘Blue Labour’ academic and peer, Maurice Glasman.
And, to win another 5-year term in 2029, he must court the working-class voters of the Midlands and Northern England, Labour’s traditional heartland, who overwhelmingly support tighter controls on immigration. Although, I’d wager that working-class Britons would have more of a problem with low-skilled migrants, whose importation the last government tried to curb.
The Labour government isn’t wrong. The UK cannot wholly rely on foreign green energy workers if it wants to achieve Net Zero. However, you cannot have your cake and eat it.
Clamping down on high-skilled migration in the short term will not help us achieve Net Zero by 2050 — it will only lead to the further decay of our already decrepit national infrastructure. Overhaling the education system to incentivise STEM subjects might be a better port of call, although Labour have made no plans for such things.
Solutions for Addressing the Skills Shortage
It’s not as if the post-Brexit Points-Based visa system gives employers a free ride to hire foreign workers. As the House of Lords report said, it’s hard for employers to get the green tech workers they need. Just think of the red tape. Before you even can consider sponsoring a visa, you must apply for and manage a sponsorship licence — all overseen by the Home Office.
The process is time-consuming, sometimes taking up to five months, and drains your resources in the meantime. It involves recruitment agencies, immigration advisors, relocation experts, and government apparatchiks.
That’s before you even consider the nuances, made all the more complicated when hiring energy workers — for example, workers for an offshore wind farm.
The rules vary, for example, depending on whether the work will be undertaken within UK territorial waters — in other words, within 12 nautical miles of the shoreline. If so, the employer must receive a sponsorship licence, and the employee will need to apply for a work visa.
But if the work will be conducted in the UK Continental Shelf (that’s 200 miles from the UK shoreline), the employee won’t be subject to the PBS; they’ll be outside the rules, and so a Continental Shelf work visa would suffice.
With all the time, bureaucracy, money and hassle, energy employers might consider hiring international graduates of UK universities — after all, such individuals don’t require sponsorship, and the UK is one of the most popular destinations for science degrees. However, recent visa clampdowns have also led to a decline in the number of students applying to UK universities. You’re caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.
Fortunately, green energy professionals are willing to relocate for career progression and lifestyle choices. The vast majority want to relocate to the USA or Europe, so UK-based employers may struggle to entice foreign workers unless they offer what they’re looking for.
Many green energy workers want the opportunity to use more innovative technology, like AI, the use of such tools being critical for survival in an industry increasingly automating its workflows. This is why more than a quarter of engineers are considering developing IT and coding skills.
The competition is fierce. Considering that the limited supply and increased demand for green energy workers has led to industry-wide wage increases, granting new employees amazing opportunities might make or break your global mobility strategy.
