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BUILT & NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RECRUITMENT

WHITEPAPER

RECRUITMENT TRENDS & CAREER OPPORTUNITIES ACROSS THE GLOBAL RENEWABLE ENERGY SECTOR

MARCH 2017 www.allen-york.com+44(0)1202 888 986


ALLEN & YORKALLEN & YORK is a leading international recruiter across the built and natural environment, specialising in:

• Energy Generation• Environment & Sustainability• Energy Management & FM• Planning, Surveying & Architecture• Health & Safety• Waste & Recycling• Water• Rail & Transportation

With 24 years’ recruitment experience we have a unique blend of sourcing expertise and technical knowledge and every consultant is an expert in their field. We’re building networks and communities in which expert information can be shared and discussed. Taking a lead on thought leadership and offering an insight into the trends and hotspots within the technical recruitment marketplace.


CONTENTS

1. Foreword 2. Global Jobs Market 3. European Jobs Market 4. UK Jobs Market 5. Current Recruitment Trends 2017 6. ALLEN & YORK Renewable Energy Careers & Salary Survey (Feb, 2017) 7. Salary Benchmarking 8. Key Highlights – Motivation for Moving Jobs9. Summary


FOREWORDThe aim of this paper is to give a better understanding of the current status of the recruitment and jobs market within renewable and clean energy, across the UK, European and global markets. ALLEN & YORK’s research highlights current career opportunities and areas for development/ investment, that will shape the marketplace in the future.

This is with a view to identifying current job opportunities and recruitment requirements, as well as informing long-term recruitment strategy. This report will be of particular interest to those working with the HR and recruitment sector, as well as the many professionals working within this dynamic marketplace.


GLOBAL JOBS MARKETIn a recent report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), entitled Renewable En-ergy and Jobs Annual Review 2016, they estimate that employment within global renewable energy increased by 5% in 2015 to reach 8.1 million (with an additional 1.3 million people employed in large hydropower).

Growth slowed over 2015, in comparison with previous years, however, the total number of renewa-ble energy jobs in 2015 worldwide, continued to rise. Which was in sharp contrast to other depressed employment markets across the broader energy sector. Countries with the highest number of renewable energy jobs were China, Brazil, the United States, India, Japan and Germany.

Solar PV was the largest renewable energy employer with 2.8 million jobs worldwide, an 11% in-crease on the previous year. Solar PV employment grew in Japan and the United States, stabilised in China (due in the main to manufacturing) and decreased across Europe.More than 1 million people are employed across the global wind industry and the total wind energy capacity is at nearly 487 GW. Installations in 2016 were led by China, the US, Germany and India, with strong growth in France, Turkey and the Netherlands, bringing the total installed wind energy for 2016 to 54 GW (GWEC, October 2016).

REN21 research indicates that bioenergy continues to be a mainstay of the renewable energy indus-try, the total energy demand supplied from biomass in 2015 was approximately 60 exajoules (EJ) and the use of biomass for energy has been growing steadily at around 2% per year since 2010.

*(graphic courtesy of IRENA Renewable Energy and Jobs Annual Review 2016)


EUROPEAN JOBS MARKETIn Europe, the largest employers are the wind, solar PV and solid biomass industries. 153.7 GW of wind capacity is now installed in the European Union with growth of 8% in 2016. Ger-many remains the EU Member State with the largest installed capacity, followed by Spain, the UK, France and Italy.

Four other EU countries (Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Portugal) have more than 5 GW installed. Seven additional EU countries have over 1 GW of installed capacity: Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands and Romania. Wind energy now overtakes coal as the second largest form of power generation capacity in Europe.

The UK leads the European offshore wind field with 40.8% of installed capacity, closely followed by Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and Belgium. Growth in Germany will continue, and Belgium will add capacity at Nobelwind as well as from two sites that were awarded the final concession for support in August 2016. Tendered projects awarded support in 2015 and 2016 in Denmark and the Netherlands will also begin construction in the next two years, so the offshore sector remains strong across Europe.

Of the total 153.7 GW of installed wind power capacity in the EU, 141.1 GW is onshore and in 2016 the annual onshore installations increased by 11% across Europe, indicating that the sector remains strong, despite the reduction in subsidies across the UK for new developments.

SolarPower Europe reports that with nearly 100 GW of installed capacity at the end of 2015 (a 15% increase on the previous year) Europe is still the most “solarized continent”. No other region can boast solar shares as high as Europe and on average nearly 4% of electricity demand comes from solar. This increase has been due in the main to growth in the UK market, this is levelling out now and there has been a decrease jobs within the market. However, we are still seeing a steady flow of jobs within the

UK JOBS MARKETThe Renewable Energy Association (REA) in their Renewable Energy View 2016, reported that 117,000 people were employed across the UK renewable energy sector in 2015, an increase of 4.2% on the previous year. The number of companies working in the sector decreased marginally, from just over 6810 to less than 6790.

Solar PV remained the largest sector in terms of companies, with over 2000 companies, however the sector also saw the greatest reduction of organisations, shrinking by 4%, with further reductions pre-dicted through 2016 as recent changes to Feed-in Tariff (FiT) policy adversely impact job prospects in the sector.

The UK still has the largest amount of installed offshore wind capacity in Europe with 40.8% meeting around 5% of annual demand and this is expected to grow to 10% by 2020.In 2016 there was a noticeable slow-down in grid-connection activity, due in part to consenting delays during Round 3. However, we will see significant capacity addition over the next two years as the Burbo Bank Extension (Liverpool) comes online and work is continued on construction across four other wind farms; Dudgeon East (Norfolk), Galloper (Suffolk), Race Bank (Norfolk) and Rampion (Sussex).

Onshore wind has grown well over several years and if recent trends were to continue this sector would make considerable contribution to the UK target of 15% of energy from renewables by 2020, however growth has slowed recently due in part to the early closure of the Renewables Obligation (RO) to onshore wind as of May 2016 and changes to subsides for new developments.

Onshore wind is one of the cheapest technologies for generating renewable electricity, so the impli-cation of reducing future deployment is that other, more expensive, technologies will be needed to meet renewable and climate change targets.

Development of AD & Biomethane has rocketed in the past 2 years in the UK, a report by the Anaer-obic Digestion and Bioresources Association showed that in December 2016 there were 540 UK AD plants in operation, compared with 424 in December 2015. According to latest figures, the AD sec-tor now has capacity of more than 708MW, which is enough to power 850,000 homes and employs around 2,865 people.



CURRENT RECRUITMENT TRENDS 2017 - UK & EUROPEAfter a long period of growth in the UK wind and solar recruitment market over the past 10 years, the last 2 years has seen a major slowdown in large-scale developments due in the main to the change in government subsidies and a perceived saturation of the marketplace. However, these are well estab-lished and strong industries across the UK and although new development has slowed, the existing wind and solar farms still require staffing and optimising to their full-capacity.

This is reflected in a major shift in job opportunities within onshore wind and solar, from EPC and de-velopment to asset management and O&M (operations and management). Optimisation of assets is paramount to achieving maximum output from existing developments, and as a result we have seen a steady demand for analysts and asset managers, site managers and technicians to enable the smooth and consistent output of power from these sites.

Offshore wind has also undergone a period of reduced recruitment activity throughout last year, however we anticipate an upturn in 2017/18 as the R3 developments across the UK coast come on-line. There are four offshore wind farms currently under construction, and a significant extension to the Burbo Bank farm off the North-West coast underway.

An exciting growth market is Energy from Waste (EfW), Anaerobic Digestion (AD), biomass and gasi-fication. This is a marketplace that has really boomed over the last 2 years. The RHI has had a direct effect on this strong growth, as well as tighter waste to landfill restrictions, we have seen more small to medium sized bioenergy plants being built and as such the jobs market is strong.

The creation of more smaller power plants across the country, has created an increased demand within Transmission and Distribution (T&D), an already candidate short market. There is no shortage of opportunities for those skilled professionals working within grid connection and overhead line engineering.

Energy regulation is another area which has shown strong growth within the renewable energy jobs market over the last 2 years. Understanding the regulation and policies within this very dynamic and ever changing sector, as well as managing investment and financial assets has become a vital role within energy companies and consultancies. Increasingly ALLEN & YORK are working with employ-ers to source specialists across energy; economics, policy, regulation and investment, and we see this as very much a growth area.

As a final note, it is worth mentioning that many of the consultancies we partner with are looking to Europe to expand their client base, particularly with the slow-down in the UK across the wind and solar markets, where the European market continues to remain steady.

The UK has very strong expertise across these industries, our health and safety records are exem-plary, and as a result job opportunities are becoming more available for professionals interested in working across Europe on some very interesting and varied projects.

In summary, the current trends for job opportunities within the UK renewable and clean energy industry are focused mainly around O&M, asset management and regulation, with a wider range of opportunity within AD & Bioenergy which is a growth market. T&D professionals are always in high demand and there are increased opportunities within UK based consultancies to work across the wider European marketplace.


ALLEN & YORK RENEWABLE ENERGY CAREERS & SALARY SURVEYALLEN & YORK conducted a careers and salary survey in February 2017, we received 330 responses, providing us with valuable insight and salary benchmarking across a selection of key disciplines.

RespondentsGeographical reach: the majority of respondents came from UK 45%, followed by the Rest of Europe 23%, Asia 15%, N&S America 10%, Africa 7% and Australia 1%.Sector spread: the majority of respondents are currently working in Solar 25%, followed by Onshore Wind 17%, then Offshore Wind 9%, Hydro 9%, Bioenergy 9%.

Salary Benchmarking An analysis of salary information taken from our database which holds over 250,000 candidate re-cords in conjunction with the 2017 salary survey of 330 individuals. The salary table below reflects the average salaries within the renewable and clean energy sector, including: offshore & onshore wind, solar, wave & tidal, energy from waste, gasification, hydro, thermal and bioenergy.

*ALLEN & YORK Renewable & Clean Energy Careers & Salary Survey 2017Engineering

Engineer £30000-£35000Senior Engineer £35000-£40000Manager/Principal/Associate Engineer £45000-£55000Director of Engineering £50000-£80000Head of Engineering £80000-£120000

Commercial & SalesCommercial Analyst £35000-£40000Commercial Manager £45000-£55000Commercial Director £55000-£100000

ConsultancyConsultant £30000-£35000Senior Consultant £35000-£40000Principal Consultant £40000-£45000Associate £45000-£50000Director / Head of Practice £50000-£80000

Project ManagementProject Manager £35000-£45000Senior Project Manager £45000-£55000Head of Projects £55000-£80000

OperationsSite Manager £35000-£40000Operations Manager £45000-£55000Asset Manager £55000-£65000Director of Operations £65000-£100000*this is a guide and is based on average salaries across the renewable and clean energy sector.


KEY HIGHLIGHTS - MOTIVATION FOR MOVING JOBS• 87% are looking to move jobs.• 74% of people believe that there are enough job opportunities within the renewable energy

industry to advance in their career, but only 31% believe they could progress within their current company.

• 43% would move for a new challenge.• Only 22% said they would move purely for a salary increase.• 46% of people believe they have job security in their present role.• 12% are looking for an opportunity overseas.• 78% expect regular training, however only 39% receive regular training in their current job.


SUMMARYGlobally, China continues to lead the world in renewable employment, with more than with 3.5 million people in the sector. Last year, China contributed to more than a third of the global renewable energy capacity and as the country’s solar boom continues, we hope to see a reduction in the chronic air pollution caused by its long dependency on coal.

Renewables employment in the US increased by 6% last year, reaching 769,000 people, driven by a boom in solar and wind. According to figures published by the US Department of Energy (US DOE), the solar workforce increased by 25% in 2016, while wind employment increased by 32%. Driven by plummeting costs and growing consumer appetite, the renewable energy sector in the US looks set to thrive, despite their climate sceptic President.

The EU are on course to meet their Renewable Energy Directive (RED), which is to fulfil at least 20% of their total energy needs from renewables by 2020. On 30 November 2016, the Commission pub-lished a proposal to revise the target to 27% renewables by 2030, giving an indication of the EU’s commitment to the renewables industry. Solar and bioenergy will continue to be strong growth sec-tors, with consistent job growth within wind.

The UK is expected to provide 30% of its electricity, 12% of heating, and 10% of transport energy from renewables by 2020, but is estimated to be less than half way towards meeting its heat goal, while transport fuel from green energy has been capped at 4.75%.

In short, the UK need to improve their performance if they are to hit the 2020 RED targets. Growth across AD and bioenergy looks set to continue, with an increase in job opportunities. A slowdown in new wind and solar developments, has given rise to a steady flow of O&M and asset management positions. However, over the next 2-5 years we should see an increase of new job opportunities as R3 developments continue to come on stream.

In summary, employment prospects across the global renewable energy sector continue to be op-timistic. IRENA research estimates that doubling the percentage of renewable energy across the global energy mix (which is in-line with current targets) would result in more than 24 million jobs worldwide – offering plenty of exciting new job opportunities across the industry.

REFERENCES• The European Offshore Wind Industry - Key trends and statistics 2016 (Wind Europe, 2017)• Renewable Energy and Jobs Annual Review 2016 (IRENA, 2016)• Renewable Energy View 2016 (REA, 2016)• Renewables 2016 - Global Status Report (REN21,2016)• Global Wind Energy Outlook 2016 (GWEC, 2016) • European Environment Agency Report - Renewable energy in Europe 2016 (EEA, 2016)• Wind in power: 2016 European statistics (Wind Europe, 2017)• US Energy and Employment Report (US DOE, 2017)


ALLEN & YORK is leading international recruitment consultancy, specialising across the built and natural environment. With 24 years’ recruitment experience we have a unique blend of sourcing expertise and technical knowledge across our core disciplines; Building Services and FM • Energy • Environment and Sustainability • Health and Safety • Planning and Surveying • Professional Services • Rail and Transportation • Social and International Development • Waste • Water. Every consultant is an expert in their field and we work with consultancies, corporate companies and the public sector to source the perfect talent for each business.

For more information contact; Miriam HealeMarketing Manager, ALLEN & [email protected]+44(0)1202 888 986www.allen-york.com

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