ICE submission to the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee on workforce planning

This inquiry by the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee examines the challenges around recruiting and retraining the workforce to deliver clean energy and retrofit homes and businesses.

The ICE’s response makes the following key points:

• It’s unlikely the 2030 clean energy mission can be delivered without additional workforce capacity. More needs to be done to understand the skills gap, especially as new recruits will take time, training and investment.
• A key goal should be to retain and retrain the existing workforce. The government should use the deep heritage and skills of the existing workforce and supply chain in the UK’s old industrial clusters.
• Retrofitting has two distinct areas: 1) addressing the fabric (insulation etc) of existing homes and 2) retrofitting clean heating (heat pumps) to existing homes. These depend on two distinct parts of the workforce – builders and plumbing and heating engineers respectively. Each will need to be reskilled to different degrees.
• Incentivising retraining is likely to require government support. There is currently little incentive to retrain due to the volume of work in traditional gas central heating systems.
• Increasing market demand can be supported by local authority-led 'bulk-buying' schemes and providing more reliable information for homeowners and occupiers about retrofit options.