[0:00]I mean, it it makes sense in a way because we know that the solar sector is seeing slower growth, and slower growth means uh less workers. Um, but we we could still reach a million workers by by the end of the decade, and we still have, you know, high installation and uh manufacturing capacity targets for the end of the decade. So is the current workforce uh, is that up to the challenge of of of delivering the energy transition? So this is a complicated question. You can't have uh, yes or no answer.
[0:40]This is Shine On policycast, Solar Power Europe's podcast dedicated to EU policy about solar, with updates in 20 minutes or less.
[0:55]So welcome to Shine On Policycast, uh, Yako. Um, and for our listeners, today we're joined by uh, Yacopo, uh, Picali, who is uh, Project and Policy Officer on skills here at Solar Power Europe. Um, and it's great to have you, and it's perfect timing. Um, because we've just launched our, uh, 2025 EU Solar Jobs report. Uh, and you've been hard at work behind the scenes with uh, with our Market Intell team and, and uh, everyone involved in the report to, to look at the latest findings of the solar job market in the EU. Um, so maybe we can kick off, Yako, with uh, some key numbers, uh, and key findings of the report. Uh, what uh, should uh, readers uh, know from the report? Super. So, thank you very much for having me here. Um, indeed there was a quite a lot of research done, especially by the marketing team on the jobs report. Um, the first number that comes to mind would be 865,000 full-time equivalent workers. This number reflects how many workers the marketing team estimates uh to be uh working in solar, indirectly and directly, in 2024. This marks a 5% increase from the previous year, so although it's an increase, it's a slow in the growth of um of workers in solar. And thisannonce a bit the mood, because what we have expected for 2025 is 825, uh, thousand full-time equivalent workers. This is a 5% drop from the 2024 one, uh, so we are basically at the same level or slightly below the ones of 2023. It's a decrease in growth that can be also partially explained by the 1.4% decrease in annual installation of solar PV. This is partially caused by competitiveness increase as well as a decrease in support and uh, regulations for solar. Uh, and when we look a bit further in the future, so in the upcoming five years, we are expecting this uh growth to, yes, be quite slow, so around 0 to 3% year on year growth.
[3:19]Um, the sector that is suffering the most at the moment would be manufacturing. It's the only sector who has decreased from 2023 to 2024. And uh, what this tells us a bit about all the numbers is also that we have to delay the 1 million target that we put. Uh, so we won't have 1 million full-time equivalent workers in 2025 like we expected. It's in the high scenarios expected to be in 2027, but uh, we think that it's unlikely for it to be um, happening in the normal scenario before 2029. So, I mean, it it makes sense in a way because we know that the solar sector is seeing slower growth, and slower growth means uh less workers. Um, but we we could still reach a million workers by by the end of the decade, and we still have, you know, high installation and uh manufacturing capacity targets for the end of the decade. So is the current workforce uh, is that up to the challenge of of of delivering the energy transition? So this is a complicated question. You can't have uh, yes or no answer. What I think is, yes, we can deliver near-term deployment, but not at scale with continuity, unless we really invest in education, training, support, as well as manufacturing, and and really support solar on all fronts.
[4:56]From skills to each uh specific sector. It has been scaling immensely uh until now. So, we should not uh forget all the really big improvements that we have done, but uh, we have seen some pessimism when it comes to meeting the targets and consideration about re-establishing and and recalculating the targets, which we believe we should, instead of, putting the arms down, push for more dedicated efforts to ensure that we can meet them. And we, we talk a lot about um, you know, the number of workers, um, but what about the, you know, quality and quantity as well? I mean, are the skills already there in the workforce, or is that something that, uh, we, we, we, we need to work a bit on? That's a very good point. Uh, it's not because solar number of workers is not dramatically increasing, that we should not dedicate enough efforts when it comes to upskilling, reskilling and dedicating enough resources to make sure that the, the quality of solar installations and solar manufacturing in Europe remains high. So, we don't have all the ideal level of skills. It can always be improved, and this is what we highly encourage, is to dedicate enough resources to improve uh upskilling and reskilling of workers.
[6:31]This is also because the quality of people's skills has a strong impact on the competitiveness of the sector, also on the security aspect. Um, especially given how the sector has been experiencing a strong evolution when it comes to the recent uh AI revolution, robotics, et cetera. So I think if we want to make sure that solar meets all the targets, we have to dedicate enough investments to integrate these new opportunities and tools into the solar workforce. Make sure that we have the modern workforce required for the kind of modern 21st century energy transition. Yes. Um, and, so you mentioned that we need some support to get there, and in this, uh, in the EU Solar Jobs Report, we have, uh, you know, I think a long list of, uh, policy recommendations. Uh, but maybe you can take us through a couple of policy recommendations, what exactly do we need from institutions in order to, to get the, the workforce to the, the quantity and, and quality, uh, that we need? Yes. So there are quite a few policy recommendations, 10 of them, and if you would like the whole extent, I would highly recommend, uh, reading the report, because they've all been explained quite in detail. So, there are different fronts and different aspects where we can really support the solar workforce. The first one, I think, would be on intelligence. Uh, we really lack data on skills needs, jobs evolution from member states, from the European Union. So, I would highly encourage, and I know this is the case, that Europe is working on it, but we need more efforts to make sure that we have all the necessary data. Because if we want to make clear forecast on the needs, if we want to make clear policies, we need to know what we're working on with.
[8:26]And Solar Power Europe is already doing an enormous effort through the jobs report, but we need more supports for this kind of reports. We need more diversified, also, uh, sources of information. And I think this is one of the key pillars of the policy recommendation that I would push for. And that, uh, that means like, uh, granular data from, from national authorities or regional authorities about the, the skills gaps that they have or the exact shortages and trainings that they need. Exactly. So, more data on the skills gap, the shortage, um, that they're encountering is exactly the kind of data. But as well as also, um, the number of workers in specific fields and all of this information, because we are relying on data from Eurostat, and, uh, it would be really interesting to have more efforts made into that data to have even more accurate numbers and more precise predictions.
[9:25]So this is something I would also highly encourage. Then, there is another point, which is continuing to have funding allocated for projects and initiatives that supports upskilling and reskilling of workers in solar, but in the whole renewable energy sector as well. Um, this is something that currently the European Union, the European Parliament are very much pushing forward, and we highly encourage to, to continue on this trajectory and also to make actionable steps. Uh, because until now, we, we are still waiting for a concrete, um, new, uh, projects that are implemented on those lines. Um, as well as also facilitating the navigation through all the different initiatives across the EU, because it's, nearly my full-time jobs, to keep track of all these initiatives and follow them. But even for me, it's quite hard to keep track of everything that's going on, and I think it's, will be beneficial for the end user, the target audience that we're trying to have these initiatives for, as well as also for the initiatives themselves, because then we avoid reinventing the wheel, we avoid duplicating efforts on certain things, and we can learn from best practices from across all different initiatives. So, this is another point that I think is really important. But then there are also other uh recommendations, like facilitating working in solar. This is partially from retaining uh people from adjacent sectors, so maybe a transitioning sectors, uh, or sectors that are encountering shifts in their uh workforce, like uh in the fossil fuel market with the energy transition. Many of the skills that are required can be also trans, uh, well, moved, shifted to the solar PV one. So we highly encourage facilitation of portability of skills across other uh sectors, as well as within the same sector. So within renewable energies, it would be super beneficial to to develop skills that are portable across the different renewable energy, um, uh, across the renewable energies, like uh solar, wind, et cetera. This will make jobs more attractive. It will facilitate also people, um, acquiring of best practices across the different uh sectors. And when talking about mobility, also mobility across Europe.
[12:12]There are quite a few initiatives that try to promote mobility across Europe, but we also need more efforts on recognition of certifications. Because it's good to have a passport with your skills to move across Europe, but people don't recognize your passport, it's pointless to have it. So, it's really important to make sure that skills, certifications, are more harmonized across Europe. And uh, I actually want to go back to a point you made about, uh, different projects and initiatives. Um, because one thing that Solar Power Europe, uh, does is, uh, we're involved in a number of EU projects on, on different topics, but we're also involved in the Reskill for Net Zero project with, uh, a few different partners. Um, and can you tell us a little bit about the, the work that we're doing there, and what the project is, is working towards? Yes, definitely. So, we are indeed working on a few uh projects. One of them is Reskill for Net Zero. We also have the Solar Academy that we're working with, Energy. And, the Reskill for Net Zero project is a project that was born from the Renewable Energy Skills partnership. It's a partnership that we are co-coordinating with other organizations, which really has the objective of addressing the skills gap in the renewable energy sector as a whole, and uniting all the renewable energies to make sure that we can achieve all the energy transition goals that Europe would like to to to see. And part of this partnership was transitioned into this blueprint project, Reskill for Net Zero. And this project was launched late last December and uh kickstarted in January 2025. In it, we have developed a few urgent courses trainings to address some urgent skills gap across Europe. Uh, we have already successfully uh trained over 400 uh students across this project. So this is really good news, given that it's less than nine months that we have uh we have been uh kickstarting this project. But the aim is not only that. It's also um creating what I was mentioning before as a policy recommendation, this cross-portability of skills across the renewable energies. We are all these renewable energy actors working together, developing trainings, running research as well as a part of developing these trainings. We need to research what are the needs and what are what what is missing currently. So, it is already addressing quite a few points that I've mentioned. But I think that one of the limitation is the scale of this project. I think if we really want to address all the needs that Europe needs, we need bigger or more projects like this, and we need to make sure that when there are more projects like Reskill for Net Zero, we are not reinventing the wheel every time. We are not redoing the same mistakes, the same good uh positive aspects. We need to make sure that we have one whole goal of all these projects that are working towards one same objective, which is also part of what we are trying to to do as a coordinators of the Reskill for Reskill Renewable Energy Skills partnership, is to create this skills alliance across different value chains where we can really make sure that uh we can develop trainings. Pretty, it sounds like uh, I mean, I'm very fitting, but the, the jobs and skills brief, there's plenty of work going on.
[16:00]Um, and congrats on the latest report, and we really look forward to seeing how the jobs landscape changes, uh, before our next report, which will be next autumn. Um, but thanks so much for sharing your insights today.
[16:17]Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for listening to this episode of Shine On Policycast.
[16:55]Make sure to subscribe and turn on notification to get updates about new episodes. Shine on.
