GUEST COLUMN:
Dr Jennifer Baxter
CEO
Industry Wales
When we talk about the future of Wales, we often talk about sustainability, net zero, and the transition to a greener economy. But the word that underpins all of this, and yet too often goes underappreciated, is skills.
Skills are not just a social issue. They’re not just about employability or community cohesion, though they absolutely play a vital role in both. Skills are, in fact, a fundamental part of our economy. They’re the engine of productivity, innovation and investment. And here in Wales, we have enormous economic value tied up in the skills of our people.
That’s why the green skills conversation is so important and so challenging.
Too often, we talk about “green jobs” as if they’re a separate sector, confined to wind farms or electric vehicle factories. But in reality, all jobs should be green. In 2025, there should be no place in the Welsh economy for work that contributes heavily to pollution or undermines our net zero ambitions.
Instead, every role, from finance to farming, manufacturing to marketing, should have an element of green awareness built in. That might mean understanding your business's carbon footprint, knowing how to integrate sustainable practices into everyday work, or being aware of how environmental regulations shape your sector.
For our larger green industries, such as offshore wind, hydrogen, or grid infrastructure, we certainly need high-level technical capabilities. But beyond that, we also need a workforce that can tell the story of net zero. We need marketers, storytellers, communicators and community leaders who can translate complex ideas into meaningful, everyday language. Because the shift to a greener economy isn’t just technical, it’s cultural. Everyone in Wales needs to understand not just what we’re doing, but why.
And yet, despite this reality, green skills are still often seen as niche, or worse, optional.
We have to change the way we build investment around skills. That starts with recognising them as critical economic infrastructure, every bit as important as roads or digital connectivity. When we talk to investors about the opportunity Wales presents, we should be talking about our skilled workforce, our education pipeline, and our capacity to adapt. These are assets. They’re economic levers. And they should be treated as such.
The green skills challenge isn’t going away. In fact, it’s becoming more urgent. But Wales is already home to the people, and the knowledge we need, what we must do now is back them with the investment and ambition they deserve.
Dr Jennifer Baxter talks about this and more in the recent Net Zero Industries Wales podcast episode “The Green Economy – Investing in Skills and Workforce for a Net Zero Future” listen to the podcast HERE
