The Green Economy: Digging Deeper Into Employer Demand for Green Jobs Across the UK Regions

In our previous Shedding Light on the Labour Market, we looked at the Green Economy, identifying a total of 366 relevant job titles in our Job Posting Analytics data, and seeing how demand has been changing at the national and Government Office Region level. In this piece, we want to delve a little deeper, this time looking at demand at the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and devolved government level, as well as taking a brief look at the salaries being advertised for these jobs across the country.

The interactive map below looks at the change in employer demand for the 366 “green jobs” we have identified, from January 2020 through to May 2021, as measured by unique employer job postings. If you click the arrow at the top, you will see that we have also included a second map showing change in demand across all jobs, so that we can compare the two.

As was the case with jobs as a whole, demand for green jobs slumped during the period of the first Lockdown, and again to some extent during the third Lockdown. However, in the last three months, demand has grown across most parts of the country, with Gloucestershire (227%), Tees Valley (216%) and The Black Country (200%) all seeing growth of 200% or more since January 2020, whilst only three areas have seen a decline (York, North Yorkshire and East Riding (-37%); Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire (-19%); and Liverpool City Region (-2%)).

It must be noted, however, that even though some of these growth numbers look big, the numbers of actual job postings for these roles is still relatively small, with just 8,200 across the whole of the UK in January 2020, rising to 12,100 in May 2021. Nevertheless, in terms of proportionate change, by comparing the map of green jobs with that of all jobs, we can see that there has been significantly higher growth in the former than the latter, shown by the fact that most of the country “goes green” by May 2021, which is not the case on the map for all jobs.

We can also take a look at salaries being advertised for green jobs across the regions, and compare it with average salaries being advertised for all jobs (the map below allows you to toggle between the two). Whilst we must stress that these are not <i>actual</i> wages, but rather the salaries being advertised by employers in their job postings in May 2021, it does provide us with some points of interest.

For instance, it is clear that on average, pay for green jobs is higher than the average salaries for all other jobs, and in some areas the difference is significant. In Cumbria, for instance, the average advertised salary for green jobs in May was £40,100, compared to £25,500 for all other jobs, and similar disparities can be seen in the likes of Leicester & Leicestershire (£37,100 compared to £27,000), and Solent (£37,600 compared to £28,100). On the other hand, there are a three regions where the average advertised salary for green jobs is slightly less than that for all other jobs, these being Buckingham Thames Valley (£27,500 compared to £29,200), Liverpool City Region (£26,000 compared to £27,700), and Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (£24,300 compared to £24,700).

Defining the Green Economy from a labour market perspective – Free Webinar 23rd June 2021 

To help facilitate this understanding, we will be hosting a free webinar on 23rd June, where we’ll be defining the Green Economy from a labour market perspective, looking at how data can help organisations identify the scale of the green sector within their area, including demand for jobs and skills, and economic value.