Research and analysis

Job estimates for wind generation 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 offshore and onshore wind sectors could support up to 145,000 direct and indirect job across Great Britain by the end of the decade.

This consists of up to:

• 100,000 jobs for offshore wind
• 45,000 jobs for onshore wind

This note outlines the methodology used to produce these estimates.

The estimates focus on direct and indirect jobs supported by the sectors, excluding any jobs induced through employment in the wind sectors, 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 (for example construction of wind farms and/or manufacturing of wind turbines)
• Indirect jobs (included): employment generated in industries that supply goods or services to the primary sector (including the wider supply chain)
• Induced jobs (excluded): employment resulting from the spending of wages by workers in direct and indirect employment, leading to increased demand in other sectors

DESNZ used different methodologies for the onshore wind and offshore wind sectors due to differences in technology characteristics and evidence bases. The underlying assumptions and definitions used have been designed to be as consistent as possible with each other, and the government’s clean power mission. To support the transparency of our analysis DESNZ has provided this methodology note to explain how these estimates have been produced.

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. For offshore wind, this includes assumptions such as global renewable deployment and market share for domestic manufacturing.

Sources and assumptions vary by technology to reflect the best available evidence for that technology. For onshore wind, this includes building on methodologies established through existing published evidence from Scotland and applying them at a Great Britain level. This is deemed appropriate given that we have no reason to believe the skills requirements for these technologies would differ meaningfully across Great Britain. All estimates are rounded to ensure they can be confidently used at the granularity quoted.

Future employment estimates for onshore wind

Estimate

The onshore wind sector could support up to 45,000 direct and indirect jobs in Great Britain by 2030.

Methodology summary

The 2030 estimate is based on a scenario where up to 29 gigawatts (GW) of installed onshore wind capacity is achieved by 2030.This is in line with the top of the clean power action plan range for onshore wind^{[footnote 2]}. The capacity range for onshore wind outlined in the Clean Power Action Plan is 27 to 29 GW, a narrower range than for offshore wind where there is more uncertainty over final requirement in 2030.

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 20 GW of installed onshore wind capacity by 2030 in Scotland^{[footnote 3]}. The report estimates were based on intelligence from hundreds of onshore wind projects – providing a full time equivalent (FTE) per GW ratios (jobs-intensity) for a typical installation by project phase. The modelling assumptions were validated by more than 20 Scottish onshore wind stakeholders in spring 2024.

There are challenges in forecasting the number of jobs supported in any sector. Particularly for onshore wind, there is limited data and evidence available on jobs supported in England due to the ban on onshore wind deployment which has been in place since 2015 and was lifted in 2024.

The ClimateXChange research focuses on the workforce requirements in Scotland, where the vast majority of recent deployment has occurred in Great Britain. As noted above, we are therefore making an implicit assumption that these findings apply to the rest of Great Britain. The final estimates have been compared with other industry and research forecasts. As well as benchmarked against the historic estimates from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy (LCREE) survey publication^{[footnote 4]}.

The export market for onshore wind is estimated to be relatively small^{[footnote 5]}, therefore we have not made any explicit assumption for jobs supported by exports.

Figure 1 – Onshore wind employment estimate calculation process

A flowchart demonstrating how the estimates of onshore wind jobs were calculated, throughout the operations and construction phases. Further detail on the calculation process is provided in this methodology note.

Direct jobs

Step 1 – construction phase

DESNZ used the jobs-intensity ratio for construction (rounded to 1,650 FTE per GW) – as presented in appendix D of the ClimateXChange report – to estimate jobs supported at construction stage. We combined this ratio to a deployment trajectory of 29 GW by 2030 which aligns with the clean power action plan. This calculated the number of FTE supported for the estimated capacity under construction each year.

Step 2 – operations and maintenance

To decide on which job intensity ratio to use for the calculation of FTE associated with operation and maintenance, we compared:

• jobs-intensity ratio for operations (rounded to 50 FTE per GW) – presented in Appendix D of the ClimateXChange report
• FTE per GW estimates suggested by historic LCREE data^{[footnote 6]} (100 FTE per GW).

After comparison we decided to use the slightly higher FTE per GW estimate from the historic LCREE data. We applied this ratio to total installed capacity annually to estimate the operation and maintenance FTE.

Step 3 – feasibility phase

To account for the roles required for feasibility we assumed that 5% of the annual workforce will be working at the feasibility project phase. This was in consideration of the ClimateXChange note that over 90% of the roles to 2030 will be in construction phase alone.

Indirect jobs

For the indirect employment, we used the ONS LCREE survey onshore wind indirect estimates to calculate the indirect to direct job estimates ratio^{[footnote 7]}. The ONS have recently reviewed and updated their methodology for producing indirect estimates. They updated the calculations to use the UK industry-by-industry input-output analytical tables (IOTs). The revised estimates suggest a significant year-on-year increase in indirect employment since 2020. Given that the ONS have marked latest 2022 estimates as provisional, we have chosen to use the 5-year historic indirect to direct job ratio to help mitigate interyear variation. Through this approach we estimate this to be 1.4 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 the onshore wind sector in Great Britain could support up to 20,000 direct and 25,000 indirect jobs by 2030^{[footnote 8]}.

Further considerations

These sector estimates provide an indication of the increase in the level of employment in the onshore wind sector to support clean power by 2030. Our estimates are based on one potential deployment pathway for the onshore wind capacity required to meet clean power by 2030.

Jobs-supported are heavily weighted towards the construction phase, meaning the assumption about annual capacity deployed to reach the 2030 position is important in driving the overall estimate. To account for this, including the fact that actual deployment tends to be unevenly distributed over time, the 3-year average of the modelled direct estimates for 2028 to 2030 (inclusive) has been applied in the estimate. We have not made any explicit assumptions around employment for repowering differing from new-build projects.

Future employment estimates for offshore wind

Estimate

The offshore wind sector could support up to 100,000 direct and indirect jobs in Great Britain by 2030.

Methodology summary

The DESNZ estimate of the number of offshore wind jobs supported is based on jobs supported through both domestic deployment and domestic activities supporting the international deployment of offshore wind, for example, manufacturing for export.

DESNZ has used an updated version of the department’s energy business opportunity calculator (BOC) to calculate this estimate. BOCs were published as part of the energy innovation needs assessment work in 2019^{[footnote 9]}. By using the BOC, DESNZ has ensured that there is consistency with any job estimates produced by the Department for other energy sectors.

The main updates made to the 2019 offshore wind BOC are:

• movement away from treating offshore wind as a single technology and instead treating it as fixed and floating wind separately – this allows us to apply unique assumptions for the individual sub-technologies
• the tradability assumption was removed because of improvements to the evidence base – it was previously used to adjust the total market size to the size of the traded segment of that market in the original BOC in 2019
• standard industrial classification (SIC) codes 3511 and 7112 were added into the updated version of the BOC – this better reflects the composition of the offshore industry
• the Gross Value Added (GVA) to turnover and GVA to worker ratios are based on the 5-year average value to mitigate against short term variation in the underlying data – this replaces the previous use of a 3-year average

The BOC takes an economy-wide view of the workforce required to support both the deployment within Great Britain, as well as around the globe. Figure 2 shows the steps in more detail.

Figure 2 – Offshore wind employment estimate calculation process

A flowchart demonstrating how the estimates of offshore wind jobs were calculated throughout the domestic and export markets. Further detail on the calculation process is provided in this methodology note.

The BOC uses the following steps to estimate jobs:

• estimate the size of the domestic and international offshore wind market the firms in Great Britain will capture
• use this to calculate the GVA added by these firms in Great Britain
• convert GVA into direct jobs
• apply type one multipliers to calculate the indirect jobs

Direct jobs

Step 1 - offshore wind market captured by firms in Great Britain

The calculator estimates the size of both the domestic and export market share that firms in Great Britain could support from 2 assumptions:

• offshore wind generating capacity deployed by 2030 (domestic and international)
• estimated levelised costs of electricity (LCOE) of deploying this capacity

Domestic deployment is based on a scenario which is broadly consistent with the middle of the clean power range, as set out in the clean power action plan (around 45 GW)^{[footnote 10]}. The plan shows a range for potential deployment of offshore wind by 2030 (43 to 50 GW) in Great Britain. There is some uncertainty in final delivery volumes. We believe that assuming delivery in the central part of the range helps to capture the wider uncertainty surrounding what actual 2030 offshore wind (OFW) capacity will be. Especially while policy development is underway to move delivery certainty into the top of the range. As such, these estimates represent a challenging range where there is potential to surpass them if we deliver 50 GW of offshore wind.

International deployment assumptions are based on commercial information from RenewableUK that DESNZ has licenced. A high-level view of the evidence is published in RenewableUK’s global offshore wind pipeline publication^{[footnote 11]}. The model is sensitive to the growth rate in international deployment assumed, rather than the aggregatetotal deployment in each year. Our analysis has taken a realistic view of international deployment from the first quarter of 2025.Our sensitivity testing of the growth rate assumption does not significantly impact the rounded employment estimate.

We have taken the estimated levelised costs associated with this capacity from the latest published version of DESNZ’s 2023 Electricity Generation Costs report^{[footnote 12]}, for both fixed and floating offshore wind (£39 per megawatt hour (MWh) and £76 per MWh respectively in 2021 prices). These values were then uprated to 2022 prices using HM Treasury’s Gross Domestic Product Deflator series^{[footnote 13]}. These estimates use the latest published levelised cost evidence. However the sector has experienced cost pressures since these estimates were published. Using our methodology, an increase in assumed capital costs would (in isolation) place upward pressure on estimated jobs.

The calculator then splits up the aggregate domestic and export market into the components needed to construct, maintain and decommission both a fixed^{[footnote 14]} and floating^{[footnote 15]} offshore wind farm. Given the need for component-level estimates, this relies upon data produced by the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult in 2019 and 2023. Table 1 shows how the cost of deployment is allocated across the different components.

Table 1 – Estimated levelised costs of electricity profile

Component	Fixed offshore wind	Floating offshore wind
Turbine	24.9%	22.9%
Foundations	6.9%	19.6%
Installation	19.2%	8.8%
Balance of system	8.0%	9.4%
Decommissioning	1.5%	2.5%
Operations and maintenance	39.5%	36.8%

A table breaking down the estimated levelised costs of electricity profile for various fixed and floating offshore wind components.

These cost components were matched to their most relevant 6-digit harmonised system (HS) code^{[footnote 16]}. Their matching was supported by relevant literature and, where necessary, the help of sectoral experts.

The calculator then brings these assumptions together to estimate the domestic and international market share of British firms.

After the HS codes were matched to the cost components, the 3-year average of the relevant COMTRADE data^{[footnote 17]} was used to estimate the current share of the export market that British firms capture.

This was then combined with export data from the LCREE survey^{[footnote 18]}.

This provides the estimate of each component’s export market that British firms could capture. For components where an HS code was not found^{[footnote 19]}, LCREE data was used as a proxy for the export portion.

Additional analysis was used to underpin the allocation of the domestic component market to British firms.

Varying by component type, this produces an estimate that between 39% and 81% of the domestic market and 2% to 8% of the international export market could be captured.

Step 2 - gross value added by firms in Great Britain

Two separate approaches to match the component parts of the offshore wind sector to SIC codes were used. The approaches use:

• relevant HS codes and matching this to the relevant PRODCOM data^{[footnote 20]} – this then enabled the SIC code to be found from the statistical correspondence tables
• literature and sector expert knowledge to identify the relevant SIC code

The calculator estimates the GVA by workers for these components by multiplying the value of the UK’s domestic and export market captured at the component level by the ONS GVA multiplier.

Table 2 shows the GVA multipliers used. These take a weighted 5-year average for over the period 2018 to 2022. This mitigates against short-term variations in the measure. The use of SIC codes in the analysis assumes offshore wind’s economic impacts will mirror those of broader industries and remain constant over time.

Table 2: Gross Value Added Turnover Ratio^{[footnote 21]}

Component	SIC code	GVA turnover ratio
Turbine	2811	21.0%
Foundations	2511	39.1%
Installation	7112	49.8%
Balance of system	2712	38.0%
Decommissioning	7112	49.8%
Operations and maintenance	3511	25.0%

A table breaking down the Gross Value Added Turnover Ratio for various offshore wind components.

Step 3 - direct job calculation

The calculator divides the GVA estimates by a productivity multiplier to estimate the number of direct jobs supported by the offshore wind sector. These calculations map components to ONS SIC codes, assuming that offshore wind’s economic impacts will mirror those of broader industries and remain constant over time. The average GVA per worker across the components is estimated at approximately £103,000.

Indirect jobs

To estimate indirect jobs, the calculator combines the direct job estimates with the average ONS type 1 employment multiplier from 2019 and 2020. The type 1 multipliers link direct to indirect jobs and are applied to the direct job estimates. This application estimates the indirect jobs supported by the offshore wind sector in Great Britain. Depending on the component, a direct job supports between 0.4 and 5.5 indirect jobs^{[footnote 22]}.

Breakdown of direct and indirect jobs

Based on the above methodology, which looks at a reasonable high end of credible options, we estimate that, the offshore wind sector could support up to 50,000 direct and 45,000 indirect jobs by 2030^{[footnote 23]}. As outlined in the introduction there are a range assumptions that underpin our estimates which produce a range of likely outcomes. For example, less optimistic choices for assumptions on international deployment and domestic market share captured by UK firms could result in job estimates that are approximately a third lower.

Further considerations

Our offshore wind sector estimates provide an illustration of the number of Great Britain jobs that could be supported by the deployment of offshore wind. This includes jobs supporting deployment within Great Britain, as well as around the globe. The latter through our wider efforts to support the development of sustainable domestic supply chains.

Although there is considerable uncertainty in the inputs, we have taken the following steps to assure and test results to ensure they provide a reasonable high-end ballpark estimate:

• independent consultants created much of the assumption set and methodology, ensuring they used the most appropriate evidence to inform the assumptions
• DESNZ analysts then updated some of these assumptions to reflect government’s latest view
• sensitivity testing has been used to help determine credible high-end estimates alongside putting the model through a rigorous analytical quality assurance process to minimise the risk of error

In aggregate, varying a broad range of uncertain input assumptions produces an estimate within the region of the published figure presented here.

The final estimate is largely in line with both previous published government analysis, and industry estimates. Given the different approaches used to estimate these job figures some differences are expected and the broad alignment serves to build confidence in our approach.

Endnotes

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

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

3. ClimateXChange (2024), Workforce and skills requirements in Scotland’s onshore wind industry ↩

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

5. Office for National Statistics (2022), Low carbon and renewable energy economy ↩

6. Office for National Statistics (2022), Low carbon and renewable energy economy ↩

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

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

9. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (2019), Energy Innovation Needs Assessments ↩

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

11. RenewableUK (2025), Global offshore wind pipeline February 2025 ↩

12. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (2023), Electricity generation costs 2023 ↩

13. HM Treasury (2024), GDP deflators at market prices, and money GDP October 2024 (Autumn Budget 2024) ↩

14. Catapult (2019), Wind farm costs ↩

15. BVG Associates (2023), Guide to a floating offshore wind farm: Wind farm costs ↩

16. World Custom Organisation traded product classification system ↩

17. A UN International trade database ↩

18. Office for National Statistics (2024), Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy (LCREE) Survey QMI ↩

19. HS codes are only applicable to goods. As such, services (such as installation), do not have a relevant HS code applied. ↩

20. Office for National Statistics (2023), UK Manufacturers’ Sales by Product (PRODCOM) ↩

21. Office for National Statistics (2025), Non-financial business economy, UK: Sections A to S ↩

22. Office for National Statistics (2025), Employment multipliers and effects in the UK ↩

23. Figures are rounded to the nearest 5,000. This rounding means that they don’t sum to the aggregate total. ↩