In 2024, global energy employment growth outpaced job gains in the wider economy for the third year in a row. Continued strong investment in energy infrastructure underpinned expanding energy employment, up by 2.2%, nearly double the economy-wide rate of 1.3%, bringing total energy sector jobs to 76 million. Since 2019, 5.4 million energy workers have been added – about 2.4% of all new jobs globally. In some countries, its contribution is far larger, reaching one in five new jobs in China and one in ten in the United States since 2022. The pace of the expansion in recent years marked a step change from pre-pandemic trends, when the energy sector added less than a third as many jobs annually than during the years between 2019 and 2024.

The electricity sector is now the largest energy employer, surpassing fuel supply for the first time, as the Age of Electricity gathers pace. Over the last five years, employment in the electricity sector – including generation, transmission, distribution, and storage – has risen by 3.9 million, representing nearly three-quarters of all energy job additions. Solar PV has been the principal driver of demand, accounting for half of the job additions in the electricity sector since 2019. Nuclear power, grids and storage accounted for another quarter of new power sector jobs seen since 2019, despite facing multiple headwinds such as increased component costs and shortages of skilled workers. Persistent challenges in the offshore power market have also slowed wind employment growth, with layoffs in turbine manufacturing, where jobs declined by 6% in 2024.

The shift to electrification is also changing the nature of employment in related sectors. Vehicle manufacturing employment continued to rise, driven by strong gains in jobs related to electric vehicles (EV), which rose by nearly 800 000 last year. In China, almost 40% of all jobs in vehicle manufacturing are now tied to EVs and their batteries. Employment in other energy end-uses rose by 2%, with electrification in buildings and industry contributing to a sizeable portion of the increase. In both vehicles and efficiency employment, part of this growth is met by workers in related segments retraining and shifting roles – such as heating technicians learning to install heat pumps or auto workers moving to EV assembly lines – but it also reflects the creation of new jobs in areas like manufacturing batteries and installing electric industrial equipment.

Demand for workers is increasing across all parts of the energy system, not just electricity, as the world remains thirsty for energy. Coal supply jobs have seen a resurgence in India, China and Indonesia in recent years, leading to global employment levels 8% higher in 2024 than in 2019, despite a 20% decline in advanced economies over that period. Oil and gas supply has recovered most of the jobs lost in 2020, as global production capacity continued to expand. However, it now appears that many firms are entering a new period of retrenchment in the face of lower oil prices and revenues, with a number of major oil companies announcing job cuts in 2025.

Emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) led energy job growth in 2024, reflecting their status as rapidly rising centres of global energy demand. Overall, employment growth was strongest in emerging economies, led by India (5.8%), Indonesia (4.8%), and the Middle East (3.5%), compared with 2.2% in China and just 0.4% in advanced economies. Still, employment remains more concentrated in economies with well-established energy firms and energy-related supply chains. For instance, in the Middle East, Korea, and Canada, more than 4% of the workforce is employed in energy – nearly double the global average of 2%.

Employment demand is expected to continue rising across all IEA scenarios.  Energy-sector job growth is on track to moderate to 1.3% in 2025, reflecting slower, though still positive growth in energy investment amid continued economic and energy market uncertainty. This moderated pace of growth is set to continue under today’s policy settings, leading to energy employment growing by 3.4 to 4.6 million by 2035, depending on the pace of energy infrastructure build out. The power sector continues to be the main source of net job growth, however sectors like oil supply face divergent trajectories depending on the direction of future policy and market conditions, underscoring the importance of flexible approaches to workforce planning, hiring and retention. All scenarios ultimately depend on firms’ ability to secure the skilled labour they need – a constraint that requires greater attention in a scenario aligned with net-zero emissions by 2050, where total energy workforce needs would increase by nearly 15 million by 2035.

Skilled worker shortages have emerged as a top concern for firms, particularly in applied technical roles. Over 700 energy firms, trade unions, and educators participated in IEA’s annual Energy Employment Survey, and more than half reported critical hiring bottlenecks – a steady increase over previous years. These shortages are most acute in applied technical roles, which account for over half of the energy workforce – more than double their 25% share in the broader economy. Employment in these roles has grown by 2.5 million since 2019. Most of the top energy occupations facing constraints within energy are considered applied technical roles, including electricians, pipefitters, electrical power-line workers, and engineers, particularly in nuclear. Many of these broader categories are already in short supply across the wider economy.

An ageing energy workforce is deepening labour and skills shortages. The energy workforce is older than the economy-wide average, and too few qualified workers are entering the sector to replace retirees and meet rising demand. Certain subsectors face more severe challenges than others. In nuclear and grid roles, for every young worker entering, there are 1.7 and 1.4 workers approaching retirement, respectively, compared to an economy-wide average of 1.2.  The pressure is greatest in advanced economies, where across the whole energy sector there are 2.4 workers nearing retirement for every worker under 25, compared with a ratio of about 1:1 in EMDEs. Imbalances are set to worsen – between today and 2035, two out of every three new hires will be needed just to replace retiring energy workers.

Building a pipeline of skilled workers is a strategic priority for energy security. The ability of countries to maintain energy security, expand grids, scale clean energy manufacturing, refurbish nuclear plants, or attract investment increasingly depends on having the right workforce in place. Today, shortages are already having tangible impacts: around 60% of companies reported labour shortages, putting timelines, system reliability, and cost control at risk.

Graduates with energy-relevant training are not keeping pace with rising needs for skilled workers. Economy-wide demand for applied technical workers grew 16% between 2015 and 2022, yet graduations from relevant vocational programmes increased by only 9%. This broader shortage is now directly affecting the energy sector, making it harder for firms to hire and retain the skilled workers they need. Nearly 50% of companies reported recruiting from neighbouring industries or increasing in-house training to fill gaps. To prevent the skills mismatch from worsening by 2030, the number of graduates entering energy would need to rise by around 40% globally, and even more in a pathway aligned with net-zero emissions by 2050. Expanding training capacity to this level would cost roughly USD 2.6 billion per year worldwide – less than 0.1% of global public education spending. Some regions have already made significant progress in drawing more young people into relevant vocational education. In China, Indonesia, and North Africa, the share of young people entering energy-relevant degrees grew by 25% over the past decade, while Europe already has one of the highest shares of youth pursuing these programmes.

Reskilling workers within the energy sector could help address skilled labour gaps. Previous IEA analysis has shown that over 40% of energy firms surveyed prefer to recruit internally to retain sector-specific know-how, while this year 50% of fossil fuel workers said they would prioritise staying within the energy sector if seeking alternative employment. Not all workers facing redundancy have a straightforward transfer pathway. With targeted retraining, around two-thirds of oil and gas supply workers have the base skills needed to move readily into other parts of energy, the same is true for about half of workers connected to fossil fuel power supply chains. By contrast, a smaller share of coal miners can be quickly reskilled, particularly those in markets with high levels of informality. Coal workers and communities therefore require more specialised support to ensure a just, people-centred transition.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a powerful productivity tool in energy, but today’s applications do little to ease the acute shortages in applied technical roles. Companies see the biggest long-term gains from AI in administrative efficiency and system performance, with early uses already streamlining permitting, improving safety, and enhancing training through virtual reality (VR). Yet energy firms lag other sectors in artificial intelligence capabilities, with concentrations of AI-skilled workers about 40% lower than in technology, finance, education, and media. And while investment in AI skills and capabilities is rising in the energy sector, current use cases do not significantly reduce demand for applied technical workers in construction, operations, and maintenance, which are mostly manual roles dominated by tasks that AI is not currently well suited to replace.

Policy makers have a range of tools to attract more workers into energy-related education and training. The IEA Energy Employment Survey identifies training costs, lost wages, and low awareness of programmes as the main barriers to entry. Policy responses that have been effective include targeted financial incentives, apprenticeships, and campaigns promoting vocational careers in energy. Targeted efforts to attract more women into technical and vocational fields – where they currently make up less than 5% of workers – are among the most impactful levers to increase overall female participation in the energy sector, currently around 20%. Firms are turning to direct engagement with educational institutions to help address skills gaps, by sponsoring students or providing training for hard-to-fill roles, particularly in vocational programmes and advanced degrees. Collaboration on curriculum development remains limited, with fewer than 25% of firms reporting involvement in such efforts, though many express interest in deeper engagement.

Attracting workers also depends on competitive wages and improved job quality. In the IEA Energy Employment Survey, workers and representatives cited pay, job security, and a safe working environment as the top factors in evaluating a role and these issues have been a frequent focus area of tripartite social dialogue and collective bargaining in the energy space. Energy-specialised roles generally pay more than comparable non-specialised roles, but wages vary widely across the sector. Oil, gas, and nuclear offer the highest pay, reflecting higher skill requirements and a stronger ability to compete for talent. In 2025, oil and gas saw the largest wage increases across most regions, averaging 3.7%, followed by nuclear at 3.2%, while coal and renewables grew 1.2% and 0.8%, respectively.

Energy employment is expected to remain a major source of job growth and an important foundation for public support of energy policies. As energy security moves higher on national agendas, a well-trained workforce is becoming essential for attracting supply chains, deploying new assets, and ensuring reliable operations. Co-ordinated action by governments, industry, and labour representatives can help prevent skilled-labour shortages from becoming a defining bottleneck, and instead enable the energy sector to deliver high-quality, well-paid jobs, strengthen competitiveness, and support countries in meeting their security and sustainability goals affordably.