Jobs and skills for adaptation and resilience in Scotland

Although there is awareness of the ‘green jobs’ opportunity associated with climate mitigation and especially energy efficiency in the built environment, understanding of the potential for jobs associated with adaptation and resilience is more limited. The purpose of this report is therefore to assess awareness of adaptation and resilience within existing policy literature on skills and jobs associated with Scotland’s climate change response, and to link this with international peer-reviewed scholarly literature to identify job and skill areas. The Clyde Corridor area of Glasgow City Region is taken as a focal point, as the launch of the Glasgow City Region Climate Adaptation Strategy and the initiation of the Scottish Government’s Clyde Mission have in recent years given dual impetus towards a just transition towards resilience for the Clyde Corridor and for the Glasgow City Region more widely. Key job areas and workforce/skills requirements that are identified across the literature include jobs in construction, land-based sectors, civil engineering and cross-cutting sectors to support societal transformation. Regional Skills Assessments from Skills Development Scotland and statistics from the Scottish Government were also used to identify opportunities for particular localities or sections of the workforce to be able to benefit from training or upskilling, so that adaptation jobs may contribute to just resilience for the Clyde Corridor. Existing skilled workers in sectors such as manufacturing and utility supply which are projected to see declines may be able to benefit from likely requirements for retrofitting and maintenance/inspection in construction, however expanding existing ideas around ‘skills passports’ to encompass adaptation and resilience jobs may support this. Data and policy documentation/extant research also suggests, however, that in construction- and land-based sectors, there is an ageing workforce and a coming need for replacement labour. Particularly in employment-deprived areas, qualifications in construction, civil engineering and land-based sectors may provide younger people with vocational-level qualifications with an opportunity to develop a sustainable career pathway. Moreover, the significance of cross-cutting skills at community level should not be underestimated as support for putting adaptation action into practice. An audit of existing training provision offered by further- and higher education institutions in the Clyde Corridor area indicates that there is relatively good provision of formal training and education relevant to likely adaptation-related jobs. However, there is an urgent need to ensure that skills for adaptation and resilience are embedded into current curricula for sectors such as construction and civil engineering. Given the likely significance of nature-based solutions to the Clyde Corridor and Glasgow City Region more broadly, it is also notable that there may be need for additional provision of landscape and ecological management training, especially at vocational level. Reflecting key challenges identified in recent policy work, this report argues there is a need for particular attention to, and emphasis on, adaptation and resilience jobs that may be available to sections of the workforce that may be more likely to struggle to find work. In other words, there remains a need for more understanding of adaptation and resilience jobs for those with vocational qualifications, alongside the planning and management-type jobs that are perhaps better understood. Fuller spatial data on workforce skills and adaptation job requirements will help to better understand how the adaptation jobs opportunity links to the existing and future workforce.