LinkedIn: How Green Skills Talent Gap Impacts Construction

Growing demand for green talent is creating a skills gap that the global workforce is struggling to fill.

That's according to a new report from LinkedIn, which highlights a significant disparity between the requirement for sustainability-related skills and the number of qualified professionals available.

This trend could directly challenge the construction sector’s ability to deliver on its pipeline of green building and infrastructure projects.

According to LinkedIn's 2025 Green Skills Report, which analysed data from its user base between 2021 and 2025, the rate of green hiring is expanding almost twice as fast as the development of green skills.

The findings show that hiring for roles requiring green skills grew by nearly 8% annually, while the share of workers possessing these skills increased by only 4.3%.

This mismatch suggests that while momentum for the climate transition is growing, the workforce is not yet equipped to support it.

Sue Duke, Vice President of Public Policy and Economic Graph at LinkedIn, explains: "The gulf between demand and supply of skilled workers continues to put this at risk"

While general climate awareness is improving, the pace of skills acquisition is a cause for concern. The report shows 17.6% of workers now have at least one green skill up from 16.8% in 2024.

However, the rate of growth in green skills acquisition has slowed from 5.5% in 2023-24 to 4.3% in 2024-25. This deceleration raises questions about the workforce's ability to meet climate targets.

Cross-industry competition for green skills

The construction industry is not operating in a vacuum and finds itself in competition for green talent with multiple other sectors.

According to LinkedIn’s statistics, the technology information and media industry recorded the highest average annual growth in green hires between 2021 and 2025 at 11.3%. This surge is partly driven by the need to manage the resource intensity of AI and data centre projects, which require extensive construction and engineering expertise to build and maintain.

This cross-industry demand indicates that green skills are increasingly integrated into roles not explicitly focused on environmental outcomes.

For the first time, workers with green skills in non-green job titles accounted for 53% of all green hires. For construction firms, this means project managers procurement specialists and finance teams will also need to understand sustainability principles to remain competitive and efficient.

Energy infrastructure and the talent shortage

The utilities and energy sectors are central to the green transition – and their recruitment difficulties directly affect construction.

Utilities has the highest concentration of green talent at 29.6%, according to the report, but it's share of green hiring reached 33.4% – which could mean that even this specialised sector cannot find enough qualified workers.

This is critical for construction companies tasked with building the next generation of energy infrastructure.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that global electricity consumption will increase by 3,500 TWh over the next three years. The IEA believes renewables and nuclear power are set to meet 95% of this growth.

This expansion necessitates a large volume of skilled individuals for the associated construction projects. Recent announcements of US$19bn in joint UK and US funding for new nuclear reactors alongside private investment from Microsoft and Google highlight the scale of construction work required.

Addressing gender disparity in construction

A significant barrier to closing the skills gap is the underrepresentation of women in industries with high demand for green skills including construction and utilities.

LinkedIn’s study shows that addressing this imbalance is a key factor in meeting transition goals. A potential solution is a move towards skills-based hiring, which the research shows can increase women's representation in qualified talent pools by 26% in the US construction.

Targeted programmes have also been shown to be effective. Neoenergia, based in Brazil, helped increase female representation among its electrician hires from 1.7% in 2019 to 51.9% in 2024.

As demand for skilled talent intensifies, such inclusive hiring and training policies will become essential. To secure the future workforce, governments may need to embed workforce development into their climate and energy policies.

Sue says: "We will only close the gap if decisive action is taken now to make skills and workforce training a core part of climate and energy policy”.