The energy skills shortage needs 100,000s of workers. Young people need jobs. So why aren’t the two meeting?

Youth unemployment is rising.

The energy skills shortage means it cannot find enough people. Those two facts should cancel each other out. They don’t, and the reason matters for anyone hiring in power, renewables or nuclear.

7 minute read

Two numbers sit next to each other right now, and they look like they should solve each other.

In early 2026, the unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds in the UK reached 16.2%, with 729,000 young people out of work and looking, up from 14.2% a year before.

Over the same stretch, the energy sector has been saying, loudly, that it cannot hire fast enough. National Grid puts the number of energy roles that need filling by 2050 at around 400,000.

So a generation wants work, and an industry needs workers. On paper that is a clean match. In practice the two are barely connecting.

This piece looks at what the data actually shows, why the obvious explanation is wrong, and what energy employers can do that goes beyond paying a premium for the same shrinking group of people.

The youth jobs market has genuinely got harder

Start with the young people.

The rise in youth unemployment is real and recent. Alongside it, close to a million young people are now not in education, employment or training, around 957,000 at the end of 2025.

The pressure has been clear enough that the government launched an independent review of youth inactivity in November 2025.

One honest caveat.

A large share of 16 to 24 year olds counted as economically inactive are full-time students, so this is not a simple story of young people refusing to work. The sharper point is that getting a first foothold, the entry-level job or the apprenticeship that starts a career, has become harder. And that is where this connects to energy.

Apprenticeships have quietly moved away from young people

The apprenticeship system used to be the main way into a skilled technical career without a degree. It is doing less and less of that job for school leavers, even though the headline numbers look steady.

In 2024/25 there were 353,500 apprenticeship starts in England, slightly up on the year before.

Under the surface, the make-up has shifted hard:

• Intermediate apprenticeships, the classic first rung, fell from 43% of all starts in 2017/18 to just 19% in 2024/25.
• Higher apprenticeships rose over the same period, from 13% to 4%.
• More than half of all starts now go to people aged 25 and over. Under 19s account for less than a quarter.
• A growing share of starts are existing employees being trained up, not new entrants getting a first break.

So the total held up while the entry-level reality hollowed out.

Reporting around the government’s youth inactivity review put the fall in apprenticeship starts among young people at about 35% over the past decade. The official England data tells the same story from a different angle: the first rung is the part that disappeared.

The headline number stayed flat. The door for a 17 year old narrowed sharply. Those are not the same thing.

The energy sector’s demand is real, and it is large

Now the other side. The shortage figures here are not soft estimates, they come from the bodies that track each part of the sector.

• The whole energy system. National Grid estimates around 117,000 roles to fill by 2030 and 400,000 by 2050, with roughly 140,000 of the existing low-carbon workforce due to retire along the way.
• Power, gas, water and waste. Energy & Utility Skills estimates more than 312,000 additional skilled workers are needed by 2030. Tellingly, only about 8% of the current utilities workforce is aged 24 or under, well below the national average across all sectors.
• Nuclear. The National Nuclear Strategic Plan for Skills targets 40,000 new jobs by 2030 and aims to double apprentice numbers. The 2024 Nuclear Workforce Assessment put the workforce at around 96,000, heading for 120,000 by 2030.
• Wind. The UK wind workforce is around 55,000 today and could reach 112,000 by 2030 on RenewableUK projections. Yet apprentices make up only about 2.6% of the offshore wind workforce.
• Engineering construction. The ECITB forecasts demand peaking around 2030, with the workforce potentially growing to about 135,000.

Sit with that 8% figure for a moment.

The utilities workforce is older than the national average, a wall of retirements is coming, and the youngest cohort is thin.

This isn’t a sector that is comfortably stocked with young talent.

So why aren’t young people filling the gap?

Here is where the easy answer falls apart.

The easy answer is that young people don’t want this kind of work, that they all want a desk and a degree. The data does not back that up.

• Higher and degree apprenticeships, the prestigious end, are heavily oversubscribed and have grown fast.
• University applications for engineering and technology subjects have been climbing.
• When nuclear actively went looking for young entrants, it reported a near-doubling of under-20s joining in a single year.

When a good technical route is built and promoted, young people take it. The appetite is there. What is missing is the route.

The bottleneck is the supply of entry points, not the demand for them.

Three things are squeezing it:

• The apprenticeship levy has pulled funding towards higher-level training and existing staff, rather than first jobs for new people.
• Entry-level apprenticeships, the ones a 17 year old can actually start, have more than halved.
• Energy employers working to tight project deadlines default to hiring experienced people. The ECITB found firms are largely competing for the same pool of qualified workers rather than growing it.

Put those together and you have the paradox in full. A genuine shortage, genuine youth interest, and a narrow, experience-weighted door sitting between them.

What energy employers can actually do

The reflex when facing a skills shortage is to raise the offer and chase the same experienced candidates harder. That shuffles the existing pool between companies. It does not make the pool bigger.

And with the International Energy Agency counting more than two energy workers nearing retirement for every new entrant under 25 across advanced economies, poaching is a losing game over any real time horizon.

The moves that grow the pool look different:

Five things that widen the door

• Build genuine entry-level routes. Not only degree apprenticeships for graduates, but the level 2 and level 3 starts a school leaver can begin. Those are exactly the ones that have gone missing.
• Hire on potential, not only a finished CV. The person with the aptitude but not yet the certificate is the one your competitors are screening out.
• Partner with colleges and training providers early. The nuclear sector’s regional hubs show what a coordinated local pipeline can look like.
• Treat retention as part of the shortage. An ageing workforce and weak diversity make the gap worse. Keeping the people you train is half the battle.
• Spend the levy you already pay. Significant levy funding goes unused every year. If you pay in, put it towards new entrants rather than letting it lapse.

None of this is fast.

It is the difference, though, between a business that has trained its next decade of engineers and technicians, and one still bidding against everyone else for a shrinking group of experienced hires.

The youth jobs gap and the energy skills gap are the same problem

These two issues usually get discussed in separate rooms. They are closer to two halves of one problem.

There are young people who want to work, an industry that needs them, and a training and hiring system that isn’t currently set up to introduce them to each other.

For employers, that reads as an opening as much as a problem. The firms that widen the door now will have the people.

The ones that wait will be paying over the odds for a shrinking pool in 2030, which is the exact year almost every forecast in this piece says demand peaks.

Frequently asked questions

How big is the UK energy skills shortage?

Estimates vary by sub-sector. National Grid puts the figure at around 400,000 energy roles to fill by 2050. Energy & Utility Skills estimates more than 312,000 additional skilled workers are needed across power, gas, water and waste by 2030. Nuclear is targeting 40,000 new jobs by 2030, and the wind workforce could roughly double by then.

Are there enough apprenticeships for young people in energy?

Not at entry level. Total apprenticeship starts in England have held up, but intermediate-level starts have more than halved since 2017/18, and over half of all starts now go to people aged 25 and over. The first rung that suited school leavers is the part that has shrunk.

Why is youth unemployment rising at the same time as skills shortages?

Because the shortage is being met by competing for experienced workers rather than by building routes for new entrants. Young people are interested in technical work, as the growth in higher apprenticeships and engineering degree applications shows, but the entry-level openings that would let them in have narrowed.

What can energy employers do about the skills gap?

Build genuine entry-level apprenticeships, hire on potential rather than only experience, partner with training providers early, take retention seriously, and spend unused apprenticeship levy funding on new entrants.

Sources

• House of Commons Library, Youth unemployment statistics
• House of Commons Library, NEET: Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training
• Department for Education, Apprenticeships, Academic year 2024/25
• National Grid, Building the Net Zero Energy Workforce, and edie reporting on the 2030 and 2050 figures
• Energy & Utility Skills figures, via utilities recruitment analysis
• Nuclear Skills Delivery Group, National Nuclear Strategic Plan for Skills, and the 2024 Nuclear Workforce Assessment
• RenewableUK, Wind Industry Skills Intelligence Report
• ECITB, Engineering construction facing peak demand for workers in 2030 and 2024 Workforce Census findings
• International Energy Agency, Energy employment has surged, but growing skills shortages threaten future momentum

If you are thinking about how to build early career routes into your team, or you need experienced people in power, renewables or nuclear while you do, the energy specialists at Astute can help. Get in touch.