“That’s something that we’ve already seen in the past years. In general, the utility-scale sector was growing faster than the rooftop market, and the rooftop market is the one creating more jobs, so that was one of the key reasons why we saw a decrease in [job growth].”

This slowdown in job creation is compounded by confusion across the industry as to what exactly constitutes a job in the solar sector. With many solar workers having backgrounds in a range of industries – from electricians to roofers to plumbers – there have been calls for greater standardisation, or at least a collective understanding, of the skills and experiences required to work in such a dynamic sector, raising questions as to what the future of solar skills will look like.

Slowing growth but significant interest

“We have seen a decreasing growth from 2022/23 to 2023/24,” says Lits, pointing to the slowdown in the rate of new job creation. He notes that, while the 2024 edition of the report has not been published, SolarPower Europe collects data year-round, and expects this trend of declining growth to be reflected in the 2024 edition.

“The decrease is in the growth rate, not the actual numbers, but we were expecting this to happen, in a sense,” continues Lits. “We knew where we were coming from, years where the growth was really exceptional – 2021 and 2022 [saw] exceptional growth when the energy crisis [led to] a lot of demand for PV in general and then in jobs for installers – so we didn’t really know by how much it would drop, but we knew the growth would not follow the same path as it did in 2021 and 2022.”

This is not to say that there is a complete lack of jobs in the European solar sector. The number of full-time equivalent jobs more than doubled between 2020 and 2023, with the deployment sector set to dominate the European solar industry for years to come. Many of these positions are in the deployment space, which Lits describes as among the most in-demand employees, and ones that are typically drawn from roofers and construction workers.

Electricians are also a highly sought-after group, and not just in the solar sector, according to Andrew Eldred, chief operating officer of the Electrical Contractors’ Association

“Across all sectors of the economy, where electricians are in demand, there’s currently a high demand and relatively low supply,” Eldred tells PV Tech Premium. “There is an attractiveness in green careers, but ultimately, what’s attractive to people is a long-term, secure career that pays really well.

“The contribution of electricians to solar PV, and other aspects of the transition to net zero, are very attractive aspects of what draws people to becoming electricians,” Eldred continues. “But that’s alongside other aspects of what’s attractive to being an electrician; it’s seen to be well paid, it’s seen to be varied – to include solar and other things as well – and it’s viewed as a long-term, secure career that will survive changes in the balance of work.”

Lits agrees, suggesting that there will be an increased appetite for skilled workers from other sectors as the solar industry becomes more complex and the process of installing a solar panel or building a solar facility involves more moving parts.

“We need a lot of electricians, plumbers and everyone more familiar with the cables and electricity in your house,” says Lits. “All the large solar plants will require more [in terms of] designing the plants, designing the area, evaluating the cost of the projects. More of a project management position in the end.”

Reskilling and redefining

Considering the transferable skills present in a number of these industries, there has been increased emphasis on ‘upskilling’ and ‘reskilling’ in recent years. Chief among these initiatives in Europe is EIT InnoEnergy’s European Solar Academy, launched during last year’s Intersolar event in Germany, to reskill 65,000 workers over the next two years.

Lits notes, however, that the idea of transferable skills in the energy sector may apply to other industries to a greater extent than in solar, pointing to the similarities between offshore oil and gas operations and offshore wind farms as a better example of transferable skills within the clean energy transition.

Eldred goes a step further, suggesting that before new training programmes and qualifications can be developed for the solar sector, there must first be a greater understanding of what precisely a “solar PV installer” looks like.

“I always ask the question, ‘What is a solar PV installer?’,” Eldred asks. “I’m not sure I understand what that is. There’s installation of solar PV, but then my mind switches to roofers – in the context of rooftop PV – and electricians and civil engineering operatives.”

“The main problem here is that the solar sector hasn’t properly defined the occupation [of installer],” Eldred continues. “If you don’t have a clear definition of the occupation, it’s very difficult to then build competence frameworks, from which you develop qualifications, from which you develop training programmes.”

This is particularly important in the renewable power sector as, according to Lits, the growth of technologies such as co-located storage means that there is more demand than ever for workers with skills in renewable technology in general, rather than solar in particular.

“A lot of jobs are not only doing PV, so we’re moving, quite a lot, to a kind of job or a position that isn’t well-defined today about someone who works a lot in installing solar PV, but also in installing batteries, electric vehicle chargers [and] anything that’s linked to the electrification of homes,” says Lits.

Delivering renewable energy jobs

This approach – of considering employment in terms of skills relevant to the entire renewable energy sector, not just the solar industry – could be useful considering the technology mix of the European clean energy sector. Figures from the European Environment Agency show that in 2023, wind projects generated the most electricity among renewable power technologies – representing 17% of all EU electricity generation – compared to 13% for hydropower and 9% for solar PV.

Indeed, the rapid growth in the battery sector means that perhaps if there is any single technology that could benefit from dedicated training programmes, it would be batteries. According to SolarPower Europe, the continent’s annual cumulative battery storage capacity has jumped from 0.9GWh in 2018 to 17.2GWh in 2023, and in its median scenario the trade body expects this figure to more than quadruple to 78.1GWh by 2028.

“Installation jobs will be there, but they won’t be in solar, they’ll be in something else,” explains Eldred. “That’s an argument against trying to ring-fence a ‘solar installation workforce’, because actually what we need as an economy is an installation workforce, who will go on to do lots of other things.”

Even within the solar sector, the current demand for types of workers is likely to change in the coming years. Jobs in the European solar sector have historically been dominated by jobs in deployment, with SolarPower Europe noting that such jobs accounted for 87% of all jobs in the sector in 2023, but this figure will fall to 79% in 2028.

“Will we have the exact same amount of people to take care of the huge fleets of panels that we will have a couple of years from now?” asks Lits, suggesting that all of today’s deployment positions will not necessarily transition smoothly into tomorrow’s operations and maintenance (O&M) jobs. “Will it be a bit less? Will it be a bit more segmented between O&M and recycling?”

“Certainly it’s true that once solar is installed, there will be a shift away from installation to maintenance, and obviously that’s going to be the main change over time,” agrees Eldred. “It has to be an installation workforce, some of which will then diversify and move into O&M, because obviously if you understand how the thing works from an installation point of view, you’re a long way to understanding how it needs to work from an operations and maintenance point of view.”

Ultimately, a more multifaceted interpretation of jobs may benefit the solar sector, whether that is in terms of the sectors from which employees are recruited and the skills that they bring or how a specific solar job is likely to shift and change over time. As Eldred says, little is gained from ring-fenced jobs and qualifications.

“It’s very short-sighted to try to ring-fence things in that way,” he says. “Personally, I think that the clean energy sector [and] the built environment sector are much better off promoting opportunities across the full range, and that will prove a much clearer, less confusing and more attractive message to young people, and to career-changers as well, than trying to sub-divide, compete and present one particular technology as somehow superior to or more attractive than another.”

Eldred will be present at Solar Media’s Solar Finance & Investment Europe event, to be held in London on 4 – 5 February 2025. Our readers have access to 20% off on tickets by adding “PVTPREM20” at checkout. 

This event annually attracts infrastructure funds, institutional investors, asset managers, banks and development platforms at the forefront of European renewables; the vast majority of which are responsible for billions in active and prospective investments in the Europe’s energy transition. For more details, visit the website.