We’re on a mission to power 10 million people in green jobs in the next 10 years

I’m Mat Ilic, co-founder and CEO of Greenworkx. I had spent my career bringing people and policy together, from running employability and skills programmes to advising at No 10 Downing Street when the UK legislated for net zero. On the hottest day of summer 2022, I saw that the climate crisis and the social challenges I had worked on were one and the same problem. I started Greenworkx from that conviction: people are how the energy transition gets delivered.

That is why our mission is to power 10 million people in green jobs in the next 10 years. Every insulated home, heat pump and solar panel needs someone with the skills to install it well, and every one of those jobs is a chance for someone to build a good career. Get the people right, and the transition follows.

By green jobs, we mean the roles that directly deliver the transition. We started with the built environment: retrofit assessors and coordinators, insulation and heat pump installers, energy advisors, and the project and customer-facing teams who keep work moving.

Our first step was helping people into green careers. We have trained more than 500 people in accredited energy efficiency qualifications, and helped dozens of them into green roles.

That work put us in daily conversation with employers, and we kept hearing the same thing: “They’re trained, but they’re not ready.” Our new starters held the right qualifications, yet many lacked the practical experience to contribute on live, tightly regulated projects. Even experienced teams were struggling to keep up as standards tightened.