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Labour needs clean energy to do more than decarbonise the grid. At a time of stagnant growth and economic pessimism, the net zero mission is being framed as the government’s primary vehicle for establishing new skills and jobs in places long starved of investment and getting the economy moving again.

The government’s clean energy jobs plan suggests the transition could support up to 860,000 jobs by 2030, including 400,000 additional roles. But is this happening quickly enough? Germany has twice as many renewable energy workers per capita as the UK. Denmark and Sweden also outstrip UK workforce capacity. Those gaps reflect years of investment in skills, supply chains and manufacturing. The economy is playing catch-up.

The clean energy workforce is expanding, albeit from a relatively weak base. The ONS estimates that there were 652,000 people employed in UK green jobs in 2024, an increase of more than a quarter on 2015 levels.…