Can Australia bridge its renewable skills gap?

New research has revealed critical gaps in Australia’s Vocational Education and Training (VET) system, suggesting that the nation might fail to meet its energy transition timeline unless urgent action is taken.

The ongoing ‘VET Blueprint Project’ (VBP), conducted by Powering Skills Organisation (PSO), aims to comprehensively explore the state of the VET workforce in Australia’s energy sector. It involves interviews with a diverse group of stakeholders, including educators, training providers, industry representatives and policymakers. There has also been document analysis of key reports and policies, along with targeted desktop research.

PSO has discovered deep and growing workforce constraints across the VET sector that could choke the supply of skilled workers needed for major renewable energy projects.

A key finding is that the trainer workforce is shrinking and aging, with projected shortages emerging across electrical, renewables and energy-related trades. Training bottlenecks are being driven by limited educator capability in high-growth technologies such as hydrogen, grid battery systems, EV infrastructure and digital energy management.

Added to this, trainers have a heavy administrative burden, which monopolises their time and reduces the productivity of registered training organisations (RTOs).

Thanks to uneven training quality and unstable completion rates, employers looking to scale their operations are faced with workforce uncertainty. Additionally, slow update cycles for training products cause a mismatch between industry demand and the skills VET can currently deliver.

The research has also identified significant data gaps that are limiting the ability to plan for net-zero skills demand. These gaps include a lack of information about the VET sector’s capacity to meet skills shortages, the number of apprentices and educators currently in the energy sector, and what shortages can be expected.

The VET Blueprint Project is expected to wrap in mid-2026, culminating in a final report to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. PSO will explore how the research findings can inform its other projects.

Top image credit: iStock.com/Thurtell