The energy industry has a term for what is happening right now: the Great Crew Change. Coined in oil and gas, it describes a structural workforce transition decades in the making. Today, that transition carries extraordinary significance. The professionals moving into retirement are taking with them decades of institutional knowledge and honoring their legacy means building the pathways that carry that expertise forward to the next generation.
That next generation will be called upon to construct, operate and optimize the most technically sophisticated energy systems ever built. Solar arrays, battery storage systems, heat pump retrofits, offshore wind farms, smart grid infrastructure and advanced energy efficiency programs all depend on skilled, credentialed workers who are ready to deliver. Training and developing those professionals at scale is one of the most consequential investments the industry can make.
This is the defining workforce opportunity of the energy transition. And the time to seize it is now.
The Clean Energy Build-Out Is Accelerating Into a Shrinking Workforce
With more than half the energy workforce having fewer than 10 years of experience, per the Center for Energy Workforce Development (CEWD), and 75% of energy professionals worldwide reporting staff shortages, according to the Association of Energy Engineers, the industry faces a compounding risk: not enough time to transfer the institutional knowledge that took decades to build. There are now 2.4 energy workers nearing retirement for every worker under 25, according to the IEA’s World Energy Employment 2025 report — and between now and 2035, two out of every three new hires will be needed simply to replace retiring workers before a single new role created by the clean energy build-out is filled. In the subsectors that matter most to grid reliability and decarbonization, the pressure is even sharper: in nuclear, retirees outnumber new entrants by 1.7 to 1; in grid roles, by 1.4 to 1.
Meeting this moment will require deliberate, coordinated action, particularly as clean energy deployment continues to accelerate. We continue to see investment in solar, storage, building electrification and energy efficiency, creating an extraordinary opportunity for workforce growth. States are setting ambitious decarbonization targets; utilities are expanding their capital programs and clean-powered data centers are being announced at a pace that reflects genuine market confidence in the energy transition. Ensuring the skilled workforce keeps pace with that momentum is the industry’s most important near-term challenge and its greatest opportunity to build something lasting.
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What the Clean Energy Economy Actually Needs
The skills required for the clean energy workforce have evolved from previous generations. They must now understand how distributed solar assets interconnect with the grid, how battery storage systems charge and dispatch, how building performance audits translate into measurable efficiency gains, how heat pumps and electrified HVAC systems integrate with utility demand response programs and how advanced nuclear reactors operate alongside digital safety systems and AI-driven monitoring tools.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects approximately 81,000 electrician job openings each year through 2034. The primary growth drivers for these openings are clean energy applications such as EV charging infrastructure, residential panel upgrades, solar integration, battery storage and smart grid modernization. The nuclear workforce is projected to nearly triple by 2050 with major increases by 2035, per CEWD, which surges the demand for energy efficiency professionals, while electrification programs scale and building performance standards tighten.
Every year the industry delays building structured clean energy talent pipelines is a shortage that compounds well into the 2030s, the decade when clean energy targets demand the most from the workforce.
A large reason for these delays stem from economy-wide demand for applied technical workers growing 16% between 2015 and 2022, while graduations from relevant vocational programs grew only 9%, per the IEA.
The Grid and Clean Energy Sector Are Rising to the Moment
The oil and gas sector has spent years developing workforce succession strategies, and now the clean energy and grid sectors have a clear opportunity to apply those hard-won lessons. The stakes are high and the timeline is ambitious, with more than half of energy firms already reporting critical hiring bottlenecks. Solar installation backlogs, energy efficiency program delays and storage commissioning bottlenecks in high-ambition regions signal that workforce capacity must grow alongside deployment goals.
The IEA projects that meeting anticipated demand will require a 40% increase in qualified new entrants to the global energy sector, supported by an additional $2.6 billion per year in training investment. Rising to that challenge is not only achievable but essential. Doing so is worth the investment to accelerate the deployment of clean energy infrastructure, strengthen energy efficiency programs and reinforce grid reliability for the communities that depend on it.
TRC Is Building the Workforce the Energy Transition Requires
TRC has spent years building workforce development programs purpose-built for the clean energy economy. These programs treat energy efficiency, storage, offshore wind, electrification and grid modernization as the essential foundation of what the next generation of energy professionals needs to know.
Through our partnership with NYSERDA, TRC has served as lead Implementation Contractor for New York State’s $120 million statewide Workforce Development and Training Programs since 2016. The curriculum is comprehensive and forward-looking, spanning energy storage, offshore wind, clean heating and cooling, energy efficiency and climate justice workforce development.
TRC’s Power Academy and STEP internship program prepare the next generation of utility professionals through direct, hands-on experience with equipment. Our Advanced Energy Apprentice Program creates structured, paid pathways into energy efficiency auditing, field inspection, weatherization, and clean energy installation, connecting community-level talent to the industry’s fastest-growing roles.
All of these programs are grounded in a foundational insight: clean energy workforce development must be a sustained, structured investment. We are building pipelines aligned with deployment timelines, equipping professionals with the skills the clean energy economy requires today and designing for lasting impact well beyond any single hiring cycle.
Representation Is an Imperative
Clean energy and energy efficiency programs are making a real difference in communities that have historically been underserved by the energy system. Lower-income neighborhoods are benefiting from weatherization programs, environmental justice communities are gaining access to community solar, and urban areas are leading building electrification mandates. The workforce serving those communities should reflect and represent them.
Expanding access to clean energy careers is both the right thing to do and a strategic advantage. A broader, more inclusive talent pool means more capable candidates, more perspectives and a stronger industry. The clean energy economy cannot afford to leave qualified people on the sidelines.
TRC’s equitable workforce development approach integrates equity-driven recruitment, mentorship, and wraparound support services to make clean energy and efficiency careers genuinely accessible to candidates from all backgrounds. As our practitioners have seen firsthand, apprentices thrive when mentors share their experience. Communities embrace the crews that come from them.
The Energy Transition Is Powered by People, Not Just Technology
Solar arrays, heat pump retrofits, energy efficiency programs, advanced reactors, offshore wind farms don’t get built, operated or optimized without a skilled, credentialed workforce. In many markets, we now have the opportunity to build that workforce from the ground up.
The clean energy transition is, at its core, a workforce opportunity. Infrastructure investments, policy incentives and technology breakthroughs all converge on the same question: whether there are enough skilled, trained and credentialed workers to carry them out. Meeting that challenge is exactly what the industry is now mobilizing to do.
The organizations that will lead the clean energy economy through the 2030s are the ones building workforce pipelines today. Structured apprenticeship programs with clean energy and efficiency competencies at their center, equitable recruitment strategies that expand the talent pool, knowledge transfer initiatives that capture what the retiring generation knows, and deep community partnerships will together transform clean energy careers into genuine, lasting pathways for the next generation.
At TRC, we believe the Great Crew Change is the energy sector’s defining workforce moment. It is a chance to build a workforce as clean, resilient and forward-looking as the energy system it will power.
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