Britain risks clean power skills shortage, says Siemens Energy UK boss
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The UK could face a shortage of skilled clean energy workers as Labour ramps up spending in the sector in the coming years, according to the UK’s biggest wind turbine blade manufacturer. Darren Davidson, the UK and Ireland boss of Siemens Energy, said the green skills gap is one of the biggest challenges facing the sector as it goes through a period of “unprecedented growth”.
He estimated about 500,000 more workers will be needed for energy jobs over the coming years as the Government tries to decarbonise the power grid by 2030 and reach net zero carbon emissions across the whole country by 2050. Siemens Energy owns the country’s biggest factory for wind turbine blades, in Hull, which opened in 2016 and now has 1,300 workers turning out the machinery used in Britain’s offshore wind farms.
The company is set to play a key part in Labour’s plans to decarbonise the power system, which have centred in large part around quadrupling the amount of energy generated by offshore wind farms by the end of the decade. Mr Davidson told the PA news agency: “There’s never been a better time to be in the energy sector. There are so many different technologies and types of jobs.
“We’ve created an environment in Hull where we’ve gone from zero to 1,300 jobs. We found the market in Hull and have been able to recruit locally because people there want to be part of those types of jobs. But he added it is “getting tough”, adding that creating a workforce with the right skills “is probably one of the challenges (Britain) needs to get right as we move forward”.
