Wind turbines and agricultural fields on a sunny day.
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UK promises to create and support up to 250,000 ‘green jobs’

18 Nov 2020

In a bid to transition to a greener economy, UK prime minister Boris Johnson has said he will roll out new jobs across windfarms, nuclear energy and more.

Today (18 November), UK prime minister Boris Johnson announced a 10-point plan for a “green industrial revolution”. It will focus on clean energy, transport, nature and innovative technologies, creating and supporting up to 250,000 “green jobs”. The goal is to “eradicate” the country’s contributions to the climate crisis by 2050.

The government will invest £12bn in highly skilled green roles in the programme’s roll-out. It expects private-sector investment to reach more than three times that amount by 2030.

Up to 60,000 of the jobs will be in offshore windfarming. The plan is that recruits in this sector will quadruple the amount of energy produced in the UK to 40GW by 2030. This would be enough offshore wind to power every home in the UK.

A further 10,000 jobs will open up in advancing nuclear as a clean energy source. People working in this industry will help develop the next generation of both small and advanced nuclear reactors.

To protect and restore the UK’s natural environment, “thousands of jobs” will help plant 30,000 hectares of trees every year. Another 50,000 roles will help make UK homes, schools and hospitals “greener, warmer and more energy-efficient”. This will include installing 600,000 heat pumps every year by 2028.

Two carbon-capture clusters will be created by the mid-2020s, representing an investment of £200m and supporting 50,000 new jobs in locations such as the Humber, Teesside, Merseyside, Grangemouth and Port Talbot.

The rest of the jobs will facilitate other key points of the plan, including generating low-carbon hydrogen production, manufacturing more electric vehicles and infrastructure to support them, investing in zero-emission airplanes and ships, and transforming the City of London into the “global centre of green finance”.

Commenting on the programme, Johnson said it will “create, support and protect hundreds of thousands of green jobs, while making strides towards net zero by 2050”.

“Our green industrial revolution will be powered by the wind turbines of Scotland and the North East, propelled by the electric vehicles made in the Midlands and advanced by the latest technologies developed in Wales, so we can look ahead to a more prosperous, greener future,” he said.

Johnson added that further announcements on reducing emissions and creating jobs will take place throughout the next year in advance of the international 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Lisa Ardill
By Lisa Ardill

Lisa Ardill joined Silicon Republic as senior careers reporter in July 2019. She has a BA in neuroscience and a master’s degree in science communication. She is also a semi-published poet and a big fan of doggos. Lisa briefly served as Careers Editor at Silicon Republic before leaving the company in June 2021.

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