350,000 construction jobs needed for net-zero target.
By 2028, in order to keep the government’s commitment to achieving a Net-Zero greenhouse gas emissions for the 2050 target, the construction industry is poised to employ 350,000 new workers.
The Building Skills for Net Zero report outlines the need for a new wave of green building specialists to reduce carbon emissions. In order to reach a Net Zero target, the first priority will be reducing carbon emissions from existing buildings, requiring retrofit work on up to 27 million domestic and 2 million non-domestic buildings.
The move to cleaner, greener construction presents big opportunities to make the industry more attractive to new recruits and upskill the existing workforce
By 2028 additional decarbonisation work will have created the demand for 86,000 construction project managers, 33,000 building envelope specialists and 59,000 plumbers and HVAC specialists.
The Net Zero project presents a huge challenge for construction to quite drastically change the current and future operations of machinery and building processes, but an even greater opportunity to create a more productive industry that’s also a more attractive career option. When we consider talking to a new generation of labourers and white-collar workers, these jobs are filled with Gen-Z and Millennial age groups that are born into a world of innovation and green technology. They will already be adept with ideas of green technology used to reduce global emissions and be seeking opportunities to pursue these ideas in the work they do.
A big part of it will be upskilling the current workforce so that they understand what sustainable building is all about.
If we work together as an industry, we can make construction greener while seizing opportunities for growth.
The other side of construction is upskilling existing workers to be able to understand and progress new green building methods and generate the level of production needed to achieve the targets set by the government.
