Global Wind Workforce Outlook 2025-2030
Ben Backwell, CEO, Global Wind Energy Council
The momentum behind wind energy is continuing to build and it is critical that this decade sees an acceleration in deployment, with the development of the global wind workforce key to turning global ambition into the realisation of wind energy’s potential on every continent. Ambition was set at COP28, where almost 200 nations agreed on a global goal to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, while wind power was recognised as a key technology to mitigate climate change. In 2024, GWEC’s Market Intelligence team recorded yet another record year for new wind energy capacity, with 117 GW of installations worldwide. That record growth is not enough however, and global wind capacity remains off-track for the tripling target.
The report also highlights how national institutions such as NIWE in India, SENAI/CTGAS-ER in Brazil, Germany’s Fachhochschulen and BZEE, as well as state-level programmes in the USA and Australia, are becoming critical partners in building the wind workforce. For GWEC and GWO, standardisation and international cooperation are essential to scaling up at pace. The next five years brings huge opportunity for the wind sector across the world. Meeting that potential will mean rising to the challenge and ensuring that as countries intensify their efforts to meet 2030 wind targets the sector is there to deliver.
The latest report tracking progress, Delivering on the UAE Consensus: Tracking Progress Toward Tripling Renewable Energy Capacity and Doubling Energy Efficiency by 2030, co-released by IRENA, the COP30 Presidency, and the GWEC-supported Global Renewables Alliance, highlights a significant gap in progress to meet the COP28 objective and keep 1.5°C within reach. The gap has closed on the year before, but still requires a growth rate of 16.6%. This can be achieved by targeting the key challenges to accelerating the scaling up of wind deployment: streamlining permitting, strengthening supply chains, mobilising finance, and investing in grids and storage. Wind deployment is still set for record years through the rest of the decade, with GWEC’s latest Global Wind Energy Outlook showing that current policies set the world on course to deliver 1TW of wind energy between 2025-2030. That will take total installed wind capacity past 2.1 TW globally. To build and maintain this expanding fleet, the wind industry will require more than 628,000 skilled wind technicians by 2030.
Onshore wind will continue to be the backbone of deployment, but offshore wind is growing rapidly and requires a specialised workforce with advanced technical skills and enhanced safety competencies. The Global Wind Organisation (GWO) and the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) are calling for urgent action to address the workforce shortage and scale up installation capability. This sixth edition of the Global Workforce Outlook provides a framework for workforce growth, which can support the expected demand for skilled technicians across the global wind sector by 2030. Workforce demand is expected to surge, particularly in O&M. In this area growth is driven by the longevity of existing assets and the complexity of next-generation turbines. This evolving landscape calls for more diverse and advanced skill sets. The challenge is compounded by a lack of new entrants and natural labour attrition, widening the gap between available workers and accelerating demand.
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