Are we ready? Navigating the green transition

Key findings:

• The net zero transition may help ‘level up’ some poorer communities, but it is not a silver bullet: The report finds that while there are some post-industrial areas – including coastal Cumbria, Lincolnshire, East Yorkshire, coastal East Norfolk, and Teesside – with a higher concentration of workers with the right skills to build green industries – they are the exception, not the rule. The report also finds there is no correlation between areas that face high deprivation or low productivity, and areas containing workforces with high potential to transition into green jobs.

   

• Workers who could be most easily retrained into higher-paying, higher productivity green jobs tend to live in areas that are already wealthy: the report identifies the City of London, South Cambridgeshire, Cambridge, Wokingham, and Richmond upon Thames, as five of the areas best placed to train workers to develop green industries.

   

• But there may be hope for some poorer areas due to a “relative pay” effect for workers switching into green jobs: The report suggests that for some places – such as Nottingham, Blackpool, Barking and Dagenham, and Luton – there are more workers with green skills who might stand to earn a pay rise switching into green jobs, making it easier to develop green workers than in already well-paying areas such as inner London or Derbyshire’s manufacturing communities.
  Read the report here