How London Climate Action Week Highlights the Role of People in the Energy Transition

London Climate Action Week brings together ideas, investment, and ambition. But behind the high-level pledges and global momentum lies a quieter challenge: who is actually going to deliver all of this?

As climate infrastructure scales, from green hydrogen to data centre decarbonisation, the gap between what needs to be built and the people available to build it is growing.

This article explores why talent is becoming one of the most critical levers in the energy transition, and what businesses and policymakers need to understand if we’re going to meet the goals being set this week in London.

Policy drives ambition. Talent delivers it.

It’s easy to be energised by the headlines during Climate Action Week—net zero roadmaps, hydrogen investment plans, record solar deployments. But when the announcements are over, delivery begins. And one question keeps surfacing:

Do we have the people to build what has been promised?

Worldwide investment in the energy transition reached approximately USD 1.8 trillion in 2023, marking a 17 percent year‑on‑year increase, according to BloombergNEF.

Yet despite this surge in capital, there's a growing concern that green jobs are expanding faster than green skills. Data from the World Economic Forum and LinkedIn’s Green Skills Report shows a 22% increase in green job postings versus only a 12% increase in talent with those skills over the same period.

In the UK, National Grid estimates that around 400,000 new energy-sector roles will need to be filled by 2050 to reach net‑zero targets.

Where talent gaps are slowing progress

Four critical areas where talent shortages are already impacting progress include:

• Leadership for scale: Leaders now need to navigate complex policy frameworks, cross-border partnerships, and infrastructure delivery—not just technical problems.
• Specialist project delivery: There's stiff competition for experienced project managers, commissioning teams, and grid engineers across sectors from gigafactories to offshore wind.
• Commercial and regulatory fluency: Experts in PPAs, market design, compliance, and emerging sectors like hydrogen are in short supply.
• Transferable expertise: Many impactful hires now come from adjacent industries—automotive, aerospace, data infrastructure—but organisations still struggle to translate those skills effectively.

These themes are echoed in recent publications from IRENA, McKinsey, and PwC, which outline how workforce readiness is emerging as a major barrier to delivery.

What needs to change

This is more than a recruitment issue—it’s a structural challenge. If talent is the bottleneck, addressing it requires strategic urgency comparable to tech development or funding. Organisations that are starting to shift successfully are:

• Hiring for adaptability: Focusing on problem-solving capacity rather than past experience in identical roles.
• Emphasising purpose and values: Recognising that purpose is a strong motivator in climate roles.
• Thinking long term: Building talent pipelines for future challenges, not only filling immediate gaps.

A moment to reflect and refocus

London Climate Action Week is about ambition, but it’s also about delivery. Every net‑zero target, project milestone, and climate breakthrough depends on the people who will design, build, operate, and lead.

The future of climate action isn’t only shaped in boardrooms or investment committees. It’s shaped every day by decisions about who we hire, what we value, and how we support the people who are delivering change.

Because in the end, the energy transition is not just about infrastructure. It is about the people driving change, and living their purpose doing it.

Follow Brightsmith on LinkedIn.