CIWM trainer Jane Hall, Director of Green Edge Applications Limited, and Scarlett, Graduate Consultant (Placement), break down the growing impact of green skills shortages.
The UK is experiencing a green skills shortage that threatens progress towards net zero and a more circular economy. Yet, paradoxically, hundreds of thousands of graduates remain unemployed. Addressing this disconnect is essential if the sector is to build the workforce it urgently needs.
The skills gap in action
In 2021, Dr Adam Read MBE, then President of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), published his Presidential Report examining the UK’s green skills gap.
The report highlighted a growing mismatch between the sector’s expanding technical and regulatory demands and the available workforce.
It identified challenges such as an ageing workforce, limited awareness of career pathways among graduates, increasing demand for digital and data capabilities, and the need for stronger alignment between education provision and industry requirements.
The consequences of the green skills gap are already being felt across the waste management industry, and limiting its ability to transition towards more sustainable and circular practices.
According to a recent National Environmental Services survey, 58% of respondents reported that there is, or soon will be, a green skills gap in UK businesses, with waste management and the circular economy identified as areas of particularly high demand.
Repair and reuse, which is positioned at the top of the waste hierarchy and a central component of a circular economy, is constrained by a shortage of trained professionals.
Limited technological expertise is also slowing the adoption of digital solutions, including digital waste tracking systems, with smaller waste sites particularly affected.
More broadly, this skills deficit is inhibiting organisations’ ability to innovate and embed sustainability initiatives across their operations.
Barriers for entrants
So what prevents young people from entering a sector that urgently needs a growing workforce?
One answer is that longstanding stereotypes often shape perceptions of what working in the waste industry entails.
The sector is still frequently associated solely with physically demanding, operational tasks such as collection and disposal, rather than with the wide range of professional and technical roles available.
Another major barrier is visibility. Despite rapid changes driven by digitalisation, regulatory reform, and circular economy initiatives, many graduates remain unaware of the opportunities available in the waste sector.
As a result, they often underestimate the variety of roles in the sector and struggle to find a clear pathway in.
Scarlett’s perspective
“Prior to my role at Green Edge Applications Limited, I held similar assumptions. It was only through first-hand exposure that I came to appreciate the breadth of roles available (spanning consultancy, compliance, technology, policy, and sustainability), the complexity and critical importance of the work, and the pace of change within the sector.”
“This experience strengthened my interest in pursuing a career in the industry, and I have since secured a place on a graduate programme as a result.”
Scarlett’s experience underlines the importance of improving communication and access to information about opportunities and the need to create clearer routes into the sector to attract the workforce it urgently requires.
Career advice in educational establishments often overlooks the wide range of roles within the waste and resources industry. As a result, our sector could be missing out on potential new recruits.
Towards the end of 2025, the unemployment rate for young people was 15.9% in the UK, up from 14.4% from the year before.
Many roles require prior experience creating an ‘experience trap’, which occurs when employers require prior work experience for entry-level roles, making it difficult for young people to secure a job.
Without being given that first opportunity, they cannot gain the experience needed to become employable, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of exclusion.
Even for graduates, entry into the sustainability and environmental sector remains challenging. Following graduation from the University of Cambridge, Scarlett found that graduate recruitment processes were often lengthy, with prolonged periods of uncertainty between stages.
Many ‘entry-level’ roles required prior experience, and rejection emails frequently arrived without feedback. This is far from an isolated case.
According to recent statistics, more than 700,000 graduates in the UK are currently not in work, representing a significant pool of talent the sector could better harness.
Bridging the gap
Intern programmes, placements like Scarlett’s role in Green Edge Applications, and work experience opportunities, such as those offered by Suez, can greatly help to bridge the gap between education and employment.
However, addressing the green skills shortage requires a whole-career approach from entry-level access to continuous professional development.
Beyond attracting talent to the sector, workplace training and ongoing professional development are also essential for bridging the green skills gap.
According to CIWM, the most popular courses focus on compliance, such as waste legislation and classification, rather than CIWM’s sustainability and climate change awareness courses – skills that are increasingly needed to drive the sector’s transition to a circular economy.
The CIWM Skills for the Future Specialist Expert Group (SFSEG) is working to address this. Chaired by Dr Read, the group brings together representatives from across industry, academia and professional practice, including early-career professionals, to provide a forum to align skills development with both current operational demands and the expectations of the next generation of recruits.
The SFSEG helps to draw together strategic workforce planning and practical outreach initiatives. Its work includes identifying the key skills the sector will require in the future, such as repair and refurbishment, resource efficiency, digital and data competency, and artificial intelligence capabilities, alongside developing structured learning pathways including training, mentoring, qualifications and career route maps.
The group also seeks to make the sector more attractive and accessible to young people and individuals from diverse backgrounds. Targeted initiatives of this kind form part of the structural response needed to address the green skills gap.
However, closing the misalignment between the sector’s workforce requirements and the underutilised graduate talent pipeline will require coordinated policy intervention, clearer skills pathways, and stronger alignment between education provision and industry demand.
With sustained collaboration across government, regulators, employers and academia, the UK waste sector will be better positioned to deliver its net zero commitments and support the transition to a more resource-efficient circular economy.
