Energy demand has increased significantly over the past decade, accompanied by strong growth in investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency. While renewable energy generation and scaling up energy efficiency are driven by investment and technology deployment, they require a workforce equipped with the appropriate skills. In this context, the availability of skilled workers is emerging as a critical factor in ensuring secure, affordable and sustainable energy systems.

In many regions, the energy sector is evolving rapidly, requiring workers to have new skills and putting increasing pressures on education and training systems to respond. To help policymakers, industry, educators and workers representatives address these changing workforce needs, additional information is needed about recent trends in workforce shortages and skills gaps, as well as on the policies to help training and educational systems adapt to evolving contexts.

This report combines new IEA analysis of online job postings with IEA employment modelling and evidence from relevant stakeholders. It examines how workforce needs and skills requirements are evolving across key energy subsectors, including solar PV, wind and energy efficiency. The main findings of the report are:

• Demand for occupations, qualifications and skills is evolving. Using new analysis of online job postings, the IEA Employment Surveys and other data sources, the report offers insights into the characteristics of labour demand. The analysis highlights how skill requirements are changing by looking at the balance between transferable and sector-specific competencies and identifying emerging skills across subsectors. Additionally, it identifies the occupations most in demand and examines how these trends differ across subsectors and regions.

• Addressing workforce shortages and skills gaps is inherently a multi-stakeholder challenge. Building on insights from two workshops co-organised by the IEA and the European Commission, the report presents many good practice examples of how multi-stakeholder approaches can be effective in addressing these complex emerging policy needs.

• Finally, the report highlights that low attractiveness of energy careers, limited availability and accessibility of training, and misalignment between energy policy and workforce planning are key barriers to developing a sufficiently large and skilled workforce. The report assesses policy approaches to address these barriers to ensure that workforce development keeps pace with the evolving needs of the clean energy transition.