Research and analysis

Job estimates for solar PV by 2030: methodology note

Published 23 June 2025

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Summary

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has refreshed its evidence base on the potential for renewable electricity technologies to support domestic jobs in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales). This does not apply to Northern Ireland.

DESNZ estimates that the solar PV sector could support up to 35,000 direct and indirect jobs across Great Britain by the end of the decade.

This note outlines the methodology used to produce these estimates.

The estimates focus on direct and indirect jobs supported by the sector, excluding any jobs induced through employment in the solar PV sector, in line with the Office of National Statistics Low Carbon Renewable Energy Economy (LCREE) survey. These employment categories are defined as:

• Direct jobs (included): employment that is directly within the primary industry or sector under consideration
• Indirect jobs (included): employment generated in industries that supply goods or services to the primary sector
• Induced jobs (excluded): employment resulting from the spending of wages by workers in direct and indirect employment, leading to increased demand in other sectors

Uncertainty around future jobs estimates

As with any medium-term forecast of employment, these estimates have some inherent uncertainty. For example, individual projects will deliver to a range of timelines which are difficult to predict in advance. This, in turn, makes it difficult to predict with certainty when jobs will materialise.

Previous government and industry estimates have reflected a reasonable and credible potential – an ‘up to’ rather than a central view. DESNZ has followed that precedent.

Estimates are based on a range of credible, evidence-based assumptions. DESNZ has taken a medium-high view of deployment potential consistent with the DESNZ clean power action plan^{[footnote 1]}. For other assumptions, where there is a choice, DESNZ has chosen a reasonable high end of credible options.

Sources and assumptions vary by technology to reflect the best available evidence for that technology. All estimates are rounded to ensure they can be confidently used at the granularity quoted.

Estimate

The solar PV sector could support up to 35,000 direct and indirect jobs in Great Britain by 2030.

Methodology summary

Our 2030 estimate assumes up to 47 GW of installed solar PV capacity is deployed by 2030, in line with the upper limit of the Clean Power Action Plan range for solar PV. The capacity range for solar PV outlined in the Clean Power Action Plan is 45-47 GW.

The methodology for direct employment is primarily based on research commissioned by ClimateXChange (funded by the Scottish Government) to consider the workforce and skills requirements to support up to 6 GW of installed solar PV capacity by 2030 in Scotland^{[footnote 2]}. This has been done at sub-sector level (domestic, commercial and large-scale), due to the unique workforce requirements for each sub-sector. The report provides estimated capacity and workforce requirements by year – used to calculate the number of feasibility and construction jobs for capacity added annually, and operational jobs to support total installed capacity.

There are inherent challenges in forecasting the number of jobs supported in any sector, but particularly for the solar PV sector which has such diverse workforce requirements between the 3 sub-sectors. The ClimateXChange research focuses on the sub-sector workforce requirements in Scotland only, therefore we’re making an implicit assumption that these findings could apply to the rest of Great Britain. Findings are considered applicable across Great Britain as a whole given we do not anticipate any regional differences in the labour intensity required for solar installations and maintenance.

The bottom-up model normalises the jobs required to provide annual estimates, reflecting the short construction period of commercial (<1 year) and domestic PV (<1 week) solar projects - noting that not all jobs will be sustained in the long-term. To account for these model limitations, the final estimates have been compared with other industry and research forecasts and benchmarked against the historic estimates from the ONS Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy (LCREE) survey publication^{[footnote 3]}.

The export market for solar PV is estimated to be relatively small^{[footnote 4]}, therefore we have not made any explicit assumption for jobs supported by exports.

Figure 1 – Solar PV employment estimate calculation process

A flowchart demonstrating how the estimates of Solar PV were calculated. Further detail on the calculation process is provided in this methodology note.

Direct jobs

Step 1 – Back-calculation of jobs-intensity ratios

Jobs-intensity ratios by sub-sector and project stage have been back-calculated based on the data in Appendix D of the ClimateXChange report, and the relative capacity installations by year in the capacity increase model in Figure 8. For the feasibility and construction stages, FTE per GW added ratios were calculated for each year up to 2030, and then the average ratio was calculated. Similarly, for operations and maintenance, FTE per GW installed capacity ratios were calculated for each year up to 2030, and then the average ratio was calculated.

Step 2 – Application of FTE per GW ratios and comparison with ONS LCREE data

These calculated ratios were applied to annual capacity added (feasibility and construction) and the total installed capacity estimates (operations and maintenance) aligning with the 47 GW deployment trajectory up to 2030, for each sub-sector and project stage. After comparison of the final estimates with the historic LCREE data, we opted to use the lower FTE per GW estimate for ground-mount operations suggested by the LCREE data^{[footnote 5]} instead.

Indirect jobs

For the indirect employment, the ONS LCREE survey indirect estimates have been used for the solar PV sector to calculate the indirect to direct job estimates ratio^{[footnote 6]}. This has then been applied to the direct employment estimates to produce the total figure. ONS have recently reviewed and updated their methodology for producing LCREE indirect estimates, using the UK industry-by-industry input-output analytical tables (IOTs) in their calculations. The revised estimates suggest a significant year-on-year increase in indirect employment since 2020. The (latest) 2022 estimates have been marked as provisional, therefore the latest 5 year historic indirect to direct job estimate ratio has been calculated and used instead. This is estimated to be 0.7 indirect jobs to 1 direct job (rounded to 1 decimal place).

Breakdown of direct and indirect jobs

Based on the above methodology, we estimate that, at its peak, the solar PV sector in Great Britain could support up to 20,000 direct and 15,000 indirect jobs by 2030^{[footnote 7]}.

Further considerations

These sector estimates are intended to provide an indication of the increase in the level of employment in the solar PV sector to support Clean Power by 2030. Employment estimates for the solar PV sector are sensitive to capacity projections by the 3 sub-sectors; domestic and commercial installation are typically more labour intensive than large-scale installations.

Our estimates are based on one potential deployment pathway for the solar PV capacity required to meet Clean Power by 2030, which does not consider additional policies to facilitate further domestic rooftop deployment and commercial installations. Any changes in our assumptions on the proportion of domestic and commercial deployment will have a significant impact on the estimated direct (and indirect) employment.

Endnotes

1. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (2024), Clean Power 2030 Action Plan ↩

2. ClimateXChange (2024), Workforce and skills requirements in Scotland’s solar industry ↩

3. Office for National Statistics (2023), Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy Survey indirect estimates, UK: 2015 to 2022 ↩

4. Office for National Statistics (2023), Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy Survey indirect estimates, UK: 2015 to 2022 ↩

5. Office for National Statistics (2024), Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy, UK: 2022 ↩

6. Office for National Statistics (2023), Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy Survey indirect estimates, UK: 2015 to 2022 ↩

7. Figures are rounded to the nearest 5,000 ↩