Employment in the UK’s wind power industry has surged 91 per cent in just three years, according to a report commissioned by trade body RenewableUK.
Figures in today’s report show a 91 per cent increase in full-time employment in the sector between 2007/8 and 2009/10.
The study was jointly commissioned by RenewableUK and Energy & Utility Skills—the Sector Skills Council for the power sector—from Warwick University’s Institute for Employment Research (IER) and Cambridge Econometrics.
The findings are based on data collected from 253 companies operating in the wind and marine energy sectors. The report revealed that over 6,000 people are currently employed by firms associated with onshore wind farms, around 3,100 are employed by the offshore wind sector and nearly 900 people work on marine energy projects.
The large-scale wind energy sector now accounts for a larger UK workforce than the country’s coal industry, with just over 6,000 workers recorded as being employed in the UK's coal mining industry in the third quarter of last year, according to Coal Authority data.
According to the report, the UK currently has 3.9 gigawatts of installed onshore wind capacity and 1.3 gigawatts of offshore power, with another 4.1 gigawatts of both land and sea-based turbines being built or fully contracted to do so. A megawatt of wind capacity typically powers about 650 homes in the UK.
RenewableUK said the report would be followed by an additional study to be released in the run-up to the March Budget, detailing the potential of the renewables sector to create new jobs.
