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The UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) estimates that the net-zero transition could deliver up to 725,000 new jobs by the end of this decade, with 250,000 already created so far. However, an “inadequate supply of skilled workers” is delaying progress, and clearer plans are needed to ensure education and training providers nurture green skills that can be applied in the real world.
Yet the term ‘green skills’ is itself a source of confusion for students and educators, and there are mixed views on whether the term does justice to the vast breadth of career paths on offer.
Inflexible curriculums that fail to respond to political changes, siloed sustainability education, unequal opportunities based on racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, social science gaps and the changing nature of apprenticeships are also barriers to being part of the green transition.
These issues and more were explored in an in-depth and lively roundtable discussion hosted by ISEP, with seven education and training specialists airing their views on what’s needed to plug the skills gap at a time when resources are being stretched to the limit.
ISEP defines green skills as “the knowledge, behaviours, capabilities and technical skills required to tackle the environmental challenges we face and to unlock new opportunities for growth”. While an accurate description, there are concerns that many people still view the environment and sustainability as being all about “wind farms and wellies”.
“As someone who graduated not that long ago, I remember what it was like hearing about green skills and jobs for the first time, and thinking, what does that mean?” says Kathrin Möbius. “We use the terms a lot in policy and strategy, but we don’t often support learners to really understand what they mean for them.”
Indeed, a poll of more than 2,000 16-25-year-olds by The King’s Trust in 2023 found that only 27% had heard of the term ‘green jobs’ and could explain what it meant. Even after it was explained, just 46% were familiar with the kinds of jobs that would exist in the green economy.
“There are parallels with tech companies shouting about not having the right skills in their organisations,” says Simon Bozzoli. “Everyone thinks you need to become a programmer or software engineer, but that’s not true at all; they need a huge range of transferable skills, and it’s the same in the green skills space.
“Green jobs range from heat-pump engineers to data analysts and people who are trying to improve organisational performance and manage change. If we reframe it as a huge growing sector with tonnes of opportunity for people with all sorts of different skills, that might be a more helpful way to close the skills gap.”
It’s not just young people who are confused by the terminology. A survey of 1,500 adults by Keele University this year found that 24% have “no understanding” of net zero, and 47% don’t know what the transition will mean for them.
This is made more worrying by LinkedIn’s Global Climate Talent Stocktake 2024 report, which revealed that the green talent pool must double by 2050 “at a bare minimum” to keep pace with demand, with roughly half of green jobs set to lack qualified candidates on current trends.
There’s still a “massive issue across the board” from employers about what green skills are, says Ruth Joseph, from the Strategic Development Network, which has a focus on developing T Levels that blend classroom learning with work experience. “That definition is needed, and overall acceptance of what sustainability means and where it relates to each particular business,” she continues. “There’s still confusion there, not just for young people, but for businesses as well.”
To help demystify these terms, EAUC Scotland published a green careers guide, which helps to break down what green jobs and skills are and signposts the best resources out there, including ISEP’s Green Careers Hub. “This guide breaks down green jobs into categories and explains how everyone can contribute, whether it be specialist roles for the net-zero and nature emergencies, systems and behaviour-change jobs, green enabling jobs in HR, and so on. We update it regularly and have a green jobs myth-buster, too,” Möbius explains.
Increasingly, there is also a spotlight on how educators can support young people into green jobs and careers, and the EAUC’s guide comes with a version for careers and student support staff. However, educators need ringfenced time for this, says Möbius: “There is a lack of capacity in the education system – people are incredibly stretched. No one has time to think about all these things because the requirements on their shoulders are already so massive that they’re nearly drowning.”
The challenge with sustainability is that the space is changing all the time, with scientific knowledge and government policies constantly evolving, making it difficult for educators to respond.
“There is not necessarily alignment with what is on paper academically, and what is happening in the industry,” says Nooshin Akrami. “I think that’s been the biggest and most important feedback that we have had from the students.
“The goalposts for sustainability and climate issues are constantly changing, and educators often haven’t had the training to respond to that – there’s a massive knowledge gap.”
Continuing professional development is lacking, with teachers struggling to stay ahead of developments in sustainability because of time constraints, workload pressures and costs.
Quinn Runkle says: “I was speaking to an academic the other day, who said they have less than a week between finding out their course load and actually teaching it, so how can we expect them to be dynamic and respond to all these changes? They’re going to pick up the slides from the person who taught [the course] last year and regurgitate them.”
Research carried out by ISEP in February among its University Corporate Partners found that a lack of resources and finances were the two biggest challenges they face in advancing sustainability education, followed by conflicting goals and competing priorities.
“The focus on closed-book exams also leans us towards a very knowledge-based curriculum, and towards pedagogies that force students to memorise facts, rather than develop the skills and capacities to embody the sort of leadership that we need to have in the system,” Runkle adds. “I’d love to see some of that content stripped out so that there’s the freedom for educators to respond to current events, changing economic priorities and what we see in the news. That’s better quality education, students prefer it and it helps with educator retention – there are lots of co-benefits.”
This is a recurring theme throughout the discussion, with concerns that much of the sustainability-related knowledge being passed on to young people is not easily transferable to the workplace.
Employer involvement in curriculum and training design has helped address this challenge, but many organisations are failing to do this and are missing opportunities to grow and diversify their talent pipelines.
“There are some good examples of employers that have worked with the core curriculum to make sustainability issues specific to their organisations,” Joseph says. “We also need to get more employers involved in hosting industry placements for students post 16.”
Research by The Careers & Enterprise Company has found that businesses doing the most intensive work on meaningful workplace experiences are 89% more likely to report they are closing skills gaps. “When businesses do good outreach into schools, young people are more likely to want to take up those careers, and businesses are more likely to have fewer skills gaps,” Andrew Hall explains.
“We are now connected with 93% of schools and colleges across the country, so if you are a business that wants to engage, you can visit the careers hub section on our website, put your postcode in and get a name, phone number and email address for somebody who can help you engage with schools and colleges – we are building those connections.
Employer involvement has been less of an issue for apprenticeship schemes – at least in England – where they are becoming increasingly popular owing to government support, the rising cost of traditional higher education and the practical benefits on offer.
“There are many strengths to apprenticeship programmes, but one of the main things that works really well is employer involvement in the design,” Bozzoli explains.
“The Institute for Apprenticeships (now Skills England) is doing lots of work to embed green skills in every apprenticeship standard, and there are more coming out that are occupationally relevant to the sustainability agenda. Apprenticeships can be a phenomenal tool to help address elements of the skills gap, and employer involvement in the pathways is critical.”
However, there are concerns that the take-up of these programmes may suffer after the Apprenticeship Levy was this year replaced by a Growth and Skills Levy, which allows employers to use up to 50% of their levy contributions for non-apprenticeship training.
“One of the big changes with apprenticeships in this country is that they have become less for young people leaving school, and more for people who are already employed and want to upskill and retrain,” Bozzoli continues.
“There is a financial and commercial risk to an organisation taking on a young person and supporting them to develop skills, and the government is not doing enough to help employers take that risk.”
Charles McKnight believes there’s still a wider issue around businesses not fully understanding their role in the green transition. “Do they even know what they need? Which is really interesting when it comes to how we frame the green skills gap,” he says. “The government should be devising policy to guide and enable corporate-level strategies, which should encompass operational as well as regional needs.
“Lincolnshire is famous for being an agricultural region; London is famous for tourism, and so on. They each have specific commercial, supply chain and logistical needs, and organisations have to determine where their activities are having the greatest impact – for example, is it waste management, harmful emissions or energy usage? It’s a complicated quandary, but one which could help identify green skills requirements."
More broadly, he believes many organisations are still unsure about the breadth of sustainability and the interconnectivity of issues. “You can guarantee the majority will say that it’s all about the environment, but I see sustainability as an ethical dilemma. We need to look at the social aspect, communities, economics, education, the whole lot and bring it together. Every Friday, we have nearly 300 students in an auditorium that are so engaged with the subject, particularly the ethical attachment to sustainability. When you start talking about the people dimension, the discussion in the classroom is brilliant.”
Indeed, polling consistently shows that young people are fully behind the sustainability agenda and want to play their part. However, a worldwide survey by ISEP partner Capgemini earlier this year found that only 44% of 16-24-year-olds feel equipped to do so.
Geography and science classes are typically where UK students develop an interest in green skills, but Runkle believes that failure to implement sustainability across subjects is inhibiting progress.
“The very siloed nature of education in this country in particular contributes to an inability to meaningfully integrate sustainability, because green skills tend to be taught in a very narrow portion of the curriculum,” she says.
“Subjects aren’t talking to each other, they’re not engaging with each other. When you look at education systems that do this well, the Finnish have ‘transversal competencies’, and weave that all together so students have a more holistic understanding of sustainability from a range of subject perspectives.”
Some of these transversal skills, which are taught across secondary education in the country, include: grit and resilience in a world of change and surprises; value-based and ethical action for the common good; appreciation of circular economy and sustainable consumerism; and democracy skills, influencing for a safe, just and sustainable future.
“Sustainability should be a cornerstone for the courses that we are developing and delivering, but schools and universities are so busy working on retention and recruitment that it’s been lost on the agenda,” Akrami comments.
“The problem is that we are working in an economic system in contradiction with the principles of sustainability and regeneration. Whatever you are working on, whether it be logistics, healthcare or education, sustainability should be the key goal, but there is a big misalignment, so bringing that together is a massive challenge for everybody.
“Sustainability is about joining the dots, and solving problems in silos does little good for that end goal. We need a serious paradigm shift, and until we do that our green skills will fall short – as Stephen Covey says in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, it’s like trying to find an address in Chicago holding a map of Detroit in our hands.”
A recent survey of employers working in sustainability by Oxford Brookes University found that 23% of job applicants are “not at all ready” when it comes to systems thinking. Bozzoli believes that getting people to be critical thinkers when applying their knowledge in the real world is key.
“Everybody who goes through the education system needs to come out understanding the interdependencies and the correlations between everything to do with sustainability, from social to environmental to economic. This is not just about skills, but behavioural and cultural change,” he says.
Another piece missing from the green skills puzzle is diversity within the sector, with The RACE Report revealing that just 4.5% of staff across 159 environment and sustainability organisations identify as People of Colour (PoC).
“The people who are most effectively engaging in the green economy tend to be white men, so there’s a growing opportunity gap, and an intersectional lens through which we need to be looking,” Runkle says. “There are some interesting and complicated dynamics around race and culture when we think about access to green skills and jobs and whether these sorts of careers are seen on an equal footing to others.
“Particularly for young people in some Black and other minority ethnic communities, parents have a big influence on career choice, and they often don’t see these careers as having equal parity and stature. There’s lots to unpack around what young people think about green jobs and skills, what informs that thinking, and how we can guide them to make sure everyone gets the benefits and opportunities on offer.”
Socio-economic backgrounds are another feature of a person’s identity that can inform career choices, and although ISEP’s latest State of the Sustainability Profession report reveals that the sector continues to offer well-paid jobs, that is not always the perception.
“We find that people, especially from economically deprived backgrounds, believe that green jobs are badly paid, and think ‘Why would I do that? I want to get out of poverty, not stay in it’,” Möbius says. “We need to do more to bust some myths about green jobs, making it engaging and accessible, and use language that people understand at all levels. There’s also a massive gap in awareness around the social science and humanities aspects of green skills, which we are not communicating well either.”
Organisations that are committed to tackling the lack of diversity within the sector can join ISEP’s Diverse Sustainability Initiative, which is now planning to expand its PoC mentoring scheme.
The UK government’s Curriculum and Assessment Review Interim Report, published in March, suggests that “rapid social, environmental and technological change necessitates that the curriculum keep pace; including a renewed focus on digital and media literacy, and a greater focus on sustainability and climate science”. A repeated concern raised in its call for evidence was that “curriculum content in several subject areas should be brought up to date where it has become redundant or less relevant”.
The researchers also heard “consistently” from young people and parents that they want more focus on applied knowledge and skills that will equip them for later life and work, with a third of parents wanting more attention paid to life skills and preparation for the job market. “There’s a lot of advocacy that organisations and institutions like ISEP need to be doing during these reviews,” Runkle says. “There’s an underappreciation of climate and nature in education, and there’s a huge opportunity for influencing there that we need to take.”
McKnight urges the government to “invest in education”, and wants to see more involvement from professional bodies, too, highlighting how ISEP helps inform his curriculum design. There are already several apprenticeships in England that fully align to membership with ISEP, which also supports universities through its degree approval programme.
Hall adds: “The infrastructure that has been built around careers education over the past 10 years has overseen improvements since the launch of the Gatsby Benchmarks. Good careers education closes skills gaps and reduces the likelihood of young people not being in education, employment or training, but we appreciate that employers, young people and educators have finite bandwidth, which is why it’s important for them to know there are many organisations and resources out there that they can turn to for help.”
Useful resources
ISEP encourages professionals to get involved with local schools to educate on the types of green careers available. Its Green Careers Hub aims to raise awareness of green skills and jobs. Visit: www.greencareershub.com.
EAUC’s Green Careers Guide: www.eauc.org.uk/green_careers_guide
State of the Sustainability Profession Report 2025: www.isepglobal.org/state-of-the-profession
Diverse Sustainability Initiative: www.diversesustainability.net
Curriculum and Assessment Review Interim Report: www.bit.ly/CurriculumAssessmentReview
Chris Seekings is the Deputy Editor of ISEP’s Transform magazine, which is published biomonthly for ISEP members. Chris’s role involves writing sustainability-related news, features and interviews, as well as helping to plan and manage the magazine’s other day-to-day activities.
