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Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has promised that the UK will gain 400,000 green energy jobs by 2030. Do you believe him?
Here‘s the BBC:
The government has announced plans to train and recruit more workers for the UK’s clean energy sector, promising to create 400,000 extra jobs by 2030.
Plumbers, electricians and welders are among 31 priority occupations that are “particularly in demand”, with employment in renewable, wind, solar and nuclear expected to double to 860,000 in five years, ministers have said.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said thousands of jobs were needed to develop Britain’s clean energy sector to “get bills down for good”.
It certainly seems ambitious — and that’s often where these kinds of government promises falter.
A pledge to create 400,000 jobs by 2030 in the clean energy sector is, on paper, a powerful signal of intent.
But several parts of this BBC report hint that it may be more aspirational than guaranteed.
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First, note Ed Miliband’s phrasing:
“It’s not a target, it’s what we need.”
That’s a subtle but important distinction. It frames the 400,000 jobs not as a firm commitment that the government is bound to deliver, but as an estimate of what would be desirable if everything goes to plan.
That’s a rhetorical shift, often used to make large numbers sound more concrete than they are.
Then there’s the funding:
£2.5 million for pilot training schemes and £20 million for retraining oil and gas workers sounds like a lot — until you realise it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of what’s being promised.
Creating hundreds of thousands of skilled technical jobs across wind, solar, and nuclear power would require tens of billions of pounds in investment, not a few pilot projects.
The technical colleges are another example:
Five “technical excellence colleges” make up a good start, but if they’re supposed to supply a nationwide skilled workforce by 2030, it’s a very modest foundation.
Skills pipelines take years to mature — apprenticeships, accreditations, industry buy-in — and the energy sector is already facing chronic shortages of qualified engineers and electricians.
The government’s timing doesn’t help either:
Job creation on this scale assumes a rapid expansion in renewable infrastructure, but delays to major offshore wind projects and concerns about grid capacity suggest progress is uneven.
Put it all together, and this is a plan with a headline number, a timeline, and very little visible mechanism.
Without major private investment, procurement reform, and accelerated infrastructure planning, the most likely outcome is a patchwork of local successes — not a nationwide industrial revival.
So: unless there’s a substantial shift from rhetoric to resourcing, this looks less like a binding promise and more like a political aspiration designed to reassure anxious voters that the government has a plan for growth and green jobs.
And that means it is a promise that is made to be broken.
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400,000 green energy jobs: another promise that won’t be kept?
Share this post:
Here‘s the BBC:
It certainly seems ambitious — and that’s often where these kinds of government promises falter.
A pledge to create 400,000 jobs by 2030 in the clean energy sector is, on paper, a powerful signal of intent.
But several parts of this BBC report hint that it may be more aspirational than guaranteed.
First, note Ed Miliband’s phrasing:
That’s a subtle but important distinction. It frames the 400,000 jobs not as a firm commitment that the government is bound to deliver, but as an estimate of what would be desirable if everything goes to plan.
That’s a rhetorical shift, often used to make large numbers sound more concrete than they are.
Then there’s the funding:
£2.5 million for pilot training schemes and £20 million for retraining oil and gas workers sounds like a lot — until you realise it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of what’s being promised.
Creating hundreds of thousands of skilled technical jobs across wind, solar, and nuclear power would require tens of billions of pounds in investment, not a few pilot projects.
The technical colleges are another example:
Five “technical excellence colleges” make up a good start, but if they’re supposed to supply a nationwide skilled workforce by 2030, it’s a very modest foundation.
Skills pipelines take years to mature — apprenticeships, accreditations, industry buy-in — and the energy sector is already facing chronic shortages of qualified engineers and electricians.
The government’s timing doesn’t help either:
Job creation on this scale assumes a rapid expansion in renewable infrastructure, but delays to major offshore wind projects and concerns about grid capacity suggest progress is uneven.
Put it all together, and this is a plan with a headline number, a timeline, and very little visible mechanism.
Without major private investment, procurement reform, and accelerated infrastructure planning, the most likely outcome is a patchwork of local successes — not a nationwide industrial revival.
So: unless there’s a substantial shift from rhetoric to resourcing, this looks less like a binding promise and more like a political aspiration designed to reassure anxious voters that the government has a plan for growth and green jobs.
And that means it is a promise that is made to be broken.
Support Vox Political!
With social media algorithms acting as gatekeepers – allowing users to read only what their owners want them to, sites like Vox Political need the support of our readers like never before.
You can help by making a donation:
https://Ko-fi.com/voxpolitical
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