IGEM welcomes Energy & Utility Skills Group’s new Skills Strategy 2025-2030

IGEM welcomes Energy & Utility Skills Group’s new Skills Strategy 2025-2030, which sets out an ambitious, evidence-led roadmap to secure the skilled workforce needed for the UK’s energy, water, and waste sectors. With the UK poised for its largest infrastructure build-out in nearly a century, the strategy is clear: “Skills are not just a business priority, they are a national imperative.”

For the gas sector, the numbers are striking. By 2030, gas networks will require a 67% workforce increase, equating to 19,600 new entrants, while gas utilisation will need to grow by 6%, demanding 45,700 new professionals. This is part of a sector-wide need for 312,300 new workers – nearly a third more than today’s workforce. The challenge is compounded by the need to replace 106,800 retirees, representing 17% of the current workforce.

The strategy is built on four pillars:

• Research: Delivering granular workforce demand estimates and resilience metrics for gas and other sectors, with annual updates to track progress.
• Attract: Raising awareness of sector opportunities, especially among underrepresented groups and NEETs (not in education, employment, or training), and coordinating national campaigns to improve industry perception.
• Develop: Piloting sector entry models, defining essential qualifications, and evolving apprenticeships to accelerate competence and productivity.
• Retain: Sharing best practices, supporting inclusive recruitment, and introducing talent referral programmes to keep skilled professionals in the sector. 

The report’s workforce analysis is robust, with biennial demand estimates and occupational mapping. For gas, the need for resilience is emphasised, with new metrics to assess how well the sector can withstand skills shortages and labour market shifts. The sector’s diversity statistics reveal areas for improvement: only 13% of the gas utilisation and 34% of the gas networks workforce is female, compared to the national 48%. In terms of ethnicity, just 5% of the gas utilisation workforce are from ethnic minority backgrounds, well short of the national figure of 14%. While gas networks demonstrate the highest representation across the wider energy and utilities sector, at 19%.

IGEM’s Policy Manager, Sayda Lees-Manning, says: “The strategy set out by Energy & Utility Skills recognises that delivering the UK’s net zero targets and ensuring a secure, resilient energy future depends on a skilled, adaptable and diverse workforce. We welcome this evidence-based approach to strategic workforce planning and the actionable roadmap for ensuring we have the right skills, in the right place, at the right time – this is essential to deliver the change we need across the gas networks to meet the challenges of decarbonisation and energy security.”