> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.peoplesfuture.scot/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # 19. Green Jobs Boom 🟡 - URL: https://www.peoplesfuture.scot/19-green-jobs-boom/ - Published: 2026-08-20T11:10:51.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-20T11:10:51.000Z - Description: ONS estimates 35,200 full-time-equivalent jobs in Scotland’s low-carbon and renewable energy economy in 2024, on £13.3 billion of turnover. A wider CBI Economics / ECIU study puts net-zero-related activity at 105,700 jobs and £10.2 billion of GVA. - Author: The Peoples Future Scotland - Tags: The 28 ONS estimates 35,200 full-time-equivalent jobs in Scotland’s low-carbon and renewable energy economy in 2024, on £13.3 billion of turnover. A wider CBI Economics / ECIU study puts net-zero-related activity at 105,700 jobs and £10.2 billion of GVA. Skills, planning, enterprise agencies and circular-economy law are devolved. Contracts for Difference, the GB grid and corporation tax are not. Jobs follow local content and connections, not press releases. --- ## Current reality ### Legal and institutional position Skills, colleges, apprenticeships, planning (including NPF4), non-domestic rates, Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, enterprise agencies, the Scottish National Investment Bank, and circular-economy policy are Scottish. The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 is in force. Green Freeports mix Scottish reliefs (LBTT, rates) with reserved allowances and National Insurance. Reserved, and decisive for volume: corporation tax, most capital allowances outside Freeport sites, employer NI, R&D tax-credit design, CfD allocation, wholesale market rules, transmission charging, and most grid investment. Crown Estate Scotland leases the seabed. Supply Chain Development Statements are the official local-content monitor; they are not a hard local-content law. ### The latest official and published numbers **Narrow official measure — ONS LCREE, 2024.** Scotland: 35,200 FTE (confidence interval 29,300–41,100); turnover £13.3 billion. STUC reading of the same series: jobs 36,300 in 2023, 35,200 in 2024 (−1,100); turnover up £744 million; imports up, exports down. Low-carbon electricity is the largest Scottish group. **Broader industry measure — CBI Economics for ECIU, 2025.** 105,700 FTE (28,500 direct, 57,200 supply chain, 18,000 induced); £10.2 billion GVA (4.9 per cent of output; 3.9 per cent of employment). About 3,000 businesses, mostly SMEs. Mean pay about £41,000–£41,800\. Local intensity: Perth and Kinross about 12.0 per cent of GVA; Aberdeen City about 9.4 per cent. The same study attributes about £211 billion and 88 GW to Scotland in a modelled UK energy-infrastructure pipeline (34 per cent by value). That is a pipeline model, not contracted spend. **Circular economy.** Zero Waste Scotland Circular Jobs Tracker (2021 data, still the detailed official-adjacent baseline): 56,000 FTE in inherently circular sectors; about £4 billion; pay about £39,500\. Broader commissioned studies have produced higher totals on different definitions. Those totals are not additive with LCREE without double-counting repair and energy-efficiency work. **UK workforce projection — DESNZ Clean Energy Jobs Plan, 2025.** Experimental: 55,000–60,000 direct clean-energy jobs in Scotland by 2030, up 35,000–40,000 from a 2023 baseline. The technical annex states inherent uncertainty. **ScotWind content.** Crown Estate Scotland SCDS updates are the primary source. Comparisons of the same project set have been reported as showing about £25.5–25.6 billion of planned Scottish supply-chain spend and a lower Scottish share than earlier developer statements, while total project cost rose. The official fact is the SCDS process and the direction of travel on share, not a guaranteed £6 billion “loss.” ### How it is experienced in daily life An Aberdeen engineer can move from oil and gas to a wind or CCUS contract. A turbine can still be built elsewhere. A construction peak lasts a few years; operations last decades. A repair shop is a green job on the circular economy definition and does not appear in a ScotWind SCDS. A Freeport site can be remediating while permanent headcount is still small. ### How it got here North Sea skills, ports and a large renewable resource created a real cluster. Leasing (ScotWind, INTOG) created a pipeline. CfDs and the GB market decide what gets built. Scottish grants and SNIB can co-invest; they cannot write the strike price. LCREE jobs jumped in 2023 and slipped in 2024\. Broader net-zero definitions grew by counting supply chain and professional services. ### What has already been tried, and what that showed SCDS commitments are not the same as invoices. Port projects (Nigg cable plant, Ardersier) are necessary and still early. Transition training funds move people; they do not create the contract. Freeport reliefs change the site offer; they do not replace a CfD. Circular Act duties can grow repair and remanufacture; they will not substitute for 28 GW of offshore construction. --- ## What needs to happen ### The improvement in measurable terms - LCREE FTE and Scottish SCDS spend moving up together, not turnover up and jobs sideways. - Published Scottish share of comparable ScotWind project spend, year on year. - Apprenticeship and college outturn in the trades DESNZ lists as binding (electrical, fabrication, high-voltage, project management). - Circular FTE on an updated tracker, not only 2021. - Port and factory utilisation, not only capital announcements. ### Sequence Consent and grid dates first. Port capacity before fabrication claims. Skills where the projects actually sit. SCDS review with consequences that existing contract law allows. Circular measures that do not wait for the next leasing round. ### Workforce, capital and standards Peak construction is temporary. O&M and remanufacture are the durable stock. Oil and gas experience is an asset with a retirement clock. Supervisor and vessel capacity bind as tightly as trainee numbers. ### What would count as success in twelve months - 2025 LCREE employment not below 2024 - An official CES update that states Scottish spend and share for the same project set - Freeport permanent jobs published separately from construction - Training starts mapped to named ports and projects --- ## What can be done under current powers ### Who holds the lever Scottish Ministers, SDS, colleges, SE/HIE/SOSE, SNIB, planning authorities, CES (seabed). UK: DESNZ, NESO, Ofgem, HMRC. ### The statute, budget or direction Circular Economy Act; NPF4; enterprise and SNIB directions; Green Freeport designations; UK CfD and charging regimes. ### What is already possible and unused More tightly specified transition training. Faster determination of manufacturing and port applications. Public procurement weighting for skills and circular outcomes within subsidy-control law. Rates and LBTT packages outside as well as inside Freeports. Publishing SCDS outturn as a statistical series. ### What would still be true if management improved tomorrow A project without a CfD and a connection does not hire. Corporation tax is still reserved. A turbine nacelle made abroad still counts as a Scottish MW. Construction jobs still end. --- ## Where the limits are ### Law and reserved powers Scotland cannot set CT, most allowances, NI holidays, or the CfD. It cannot rebuild the GB wholesale market or TNUoS. Item 8 is the same constraint on bills; this item is the same constraint on factories. ### Money Port and factory capital is large. SNIB and agency grants are real and finite. UK-funded grid and CfDs dwarf them. ### Workforce and capital 35,200 LCREE jobs is the official base. 55,000–60,000 by 2030 is a UK experimental projection, not a Scottish delivery figure. ### Time, geography, UK-wide systems Connection queues and Eastern Green Link dates sit in GB institutions. Aberdeen’s cluster is not the same labour market as a Borders repair shop. ### Political difficulty, kept separate from legal impossibility Local content rhetoric without a legal hook is a choice. Changing reserved tax and market rules is not. --- ## What is not yet known 2025 LCREE. Official CES like-for-like Scottish share for 2026\. Freeport permanent jobs at scale. An updated circular-jobs year after 2021\. How many of the 35,000–40,000 DESNZ increment survive a delayed grid year? --- ## Honest summary **Achievable now.** Expand the skills mix that ports and O&M actually hire. Consent the factories. Publish SCDS outturn. Use the Circular Act for repair and remanufacture. Spend Freeport reliefs on occupied space, not only remediation. **Only partly achievable.** A guaranteed extra 50,000 high-quality jobs from Edinburgh. A Scottish-owned majority of ScotWind hardware. Start-up incentives that match a full corporate-tax regime. **Would require reserved change.** Corporation tax and NI design; CfD and charging architecture; a unilaterally different GB market. **Colour mark: yellow.** The job base is already large and largely in Scottish control on skills and place. The ceiling on volume and on start-up tax is reserved. Yellow does not mean nothing can be done. It observes that LCREE can stall while the pipeline headline grows. **What this item does not settle.** It does not add CBI 105,700 to ONS 35,200\. It does not treat a pipeline GW as a job. It does not make agriculture the enemy of the comparison. It does not assume every circular job is additional to energy. The test is whether the next ONS year and the next SCDS update move Scottish employment and Scottish spend in the same direction. --- ## Connection Item 8 is the reserved market and charging system that decides whether generation is built. Item 7 is the training pipeline. Item 10 is manufacturing and compute. Item 11 is residual immigration when domestic supply is short. Item 16 is rural ports and grid. The Independence Debate applies to tax, currency of investment, and a separate energy market — not to college places or NPF4. --- **People’s Future Scotland**