VHR is a global technical recruitment specialist operating across energy and renewables, aviation, aerospace, engineering and defence. With a presence in 59 countries and a track record spanning over two decades, VHR partners with developers, operators, EPCs and OEMs to source and place technical talent at every level, from commissioning engineers and HV specialists to project managers and site leads. In a sector where a delayed hire can result in multiple consequences such as a project milestone being missed, VHR's value lies in managing workforce dynamics, especially when tight project timelines are strained by a scarce talent pool.

Why Energy and Renewables Companies Keep Losing the Talent They Need 

Meet the Contributors

	Anthony Jackson is a Business Development Manager at VHR specialising in energy and renewables. Working day-to-day with developers, EPCs and project operators across offshore wind, solar, BESS and grid. Anthony has a ground-level understanding of where the talent is scarce, why it moves, and what it costs when companies get their hiring strategy wrong.
	Ashaan Graham is a Growth Marketing Executive at VHR, focused on the energy and renewables sector. Ashaan helps VHR communicate the real pressures facing the industry, and the talent solutions that actually make a difference.

The Question: What's the biggest mistake you see energy and renewables companies make when they're trying to hire technical talent, and what does it cost them? 

It is a question that cuts to the heart of one of the most consequential bottlenecks in the energy transition right now. The UK wants clean power by 2030, which means building at an intense pace. But the people supposed to actually deliver this are already completely overwhelmed. Clean energy employment is expected to nearly double to 860,000 in the UK by 2030, and of the 10 priority sectors analysed by Skills England, clean energy industries are projected to require one of the largest workforce increases of any sector.

With the stakes this high, companies can't afford bad hires. We spoke with Anthony to get his perspective on where businesses trip up and what those mistakes actually cost.

Anthony's Answer

First, Anthony is crystal clear about what kind of problem this is.

“The biggest mistake is simply not planning far enough ahead. The renewables market is incredibly busy right now, packed with opportunities and a massive demand for engineering staff. For roles like commissioning engineers, the competition is fierce. When companies wait until the last minute or drag their feet through hiring and onboarding, competitors snap these workers up. This leaves businesses short on mission-critical staff, and missing a commissioning engineer when you need one can easily cost thousands a day.”

What Anthony is describing is a structural shift that is fast becoming the default state of the market.

The Structural Picture

The wind sector alone is projected to grow from approximately 55,000 workers from 2025 to 112,000 by 2030. The IEA's World Energy Employment 2025 report found that more than half of the 700 energy companies surveyed reported critical hiring bottlenecks already threatening to delay projects. To simply prevent the skills gap from widening further by 2030, the number of newly qualified entrants into the global energy sector would need to rise by 40%.

The talent pipeline just can't keep pace with demand. Today, specialised technical roles and project leads make up more than half of the world's energy workforce. Because these specific roles are so difficult to fill, project timelines are constantly at risk.

Meanwhile, the competition for that same talent pool is intensifying on every front. Engineering roles critical for clean energy are simultaneously in high demand across advanced manufacturing, defense and digital sectors. The talent pool is just not growing quickly enough to satisfy competing industries all drawing from it at once.

Why the Last-Minute Approach Fails in This Market

The error Anthony describes is easy to make. Companies tend to wait for a project to clear its planning stages and get financial approval before they even think about hiring. Once the construction timeline is finalised, then they start recruiting. While that order of business works perfectly fine in most sectors, it simply doesn't work in today's energy market.

The commissioning engineer shortage shows exactly why this timeline fails. These engineers handle the final stretch of project delivery, where they must validate systems and sign off on performance before the asset can actually go live. Because they step in at the most time-sensitive phase of the lifecycle, companies end up fighting over the exact same handful of candidates.

By the time a company realises they need a commissioning engineer for a project going live in three months, that engineer is already talking to two or three other operators. These professionals don't sit around waiting for work. They are either fully employed or involved in hiring processes with more organised competitors who started their search earlier.

The issue isn't isolated to just one role. Across all the specialised technical and managerial positions needed for these projects, the situation is identical. These professionals are in incredibly short supply and rarely out of work. Because they are constantly in demand, they feel no pressure to change jobs unless a company approaches them with the perfect offer at the exact right moment.

"Onboarding speed is the trap. Companies want someone in fast, but the best candidates have notice periods and non-competes that may take months to clear. So, the faster you need them, the earlier you should start looking."

 We agree with Anthony on the point that onboarding speed makes this even more critical. Even if you find a great candidate early, dragging your feet internally gives the advantage away to a competitor. When internal sign-offs stall and the offer stage drags out, it creates a window for rival companies to step in. Because these highly in demand professionals usually have several options on the table at once, the business that secures them first wins.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

"A bad hire doesn't just produce less, they often slow down the people around them too."

That cost compounds fast too and it shows up even when there's no bad hire at all, just an empty seat. When a commissioning engineer is missing, the fallout goes far beyond a single delayed task. Their absence stalls the entire commissioning program, which directly pushes back the grid connection date. This delay can easily trigger costly penalty clauses tied to your contracts for different windows, ultimately pushing back your revenue generation by weeks or months.

Financial exposure grows alongside the scale of the project. If you are managing a massive offshore wind farm or battery storage site, a delayed commissioning schedule has immediate consequences.

The wider market landscape will only worsen these pressures over the coming years. Right now, the global offshore wind industry is seeing deep shortages in everything from installation vessels to supply chain networks, with the worker shortage hitting the hardest. The UK wants to scale its offshore wind capacity from roughly 14.7GW up to 43GW by 2030. This ultimately demands a delivery pace that the existing talent pool is not equipped to handle. Every single project delay triggers a domino effect, making it even harder to secure the handful of specialists left for the next builds. 

What Good Looks Like

There is a clear pattern among the companies that consistently get the hiring process right. They build recruitment straight into the initial project planning stages rather than waiting around to react.

Achieving this requires a total shift in approach. Instead of waiting for a role to become an emergency, smart operators engage a recruitment partner the moment a project milestone is locked in.

This allows hiring to run right alongside planning and procurement rather than trailing behind them. Crucially, your internal processes must move fast enough to finalise the contract before a top candidate gets snapped up by the market

When dealing with highly specialised technical talent, expecting to find someone in a few weeks is quite unrealistic. In today's market, the true lead time is measured in months. The businesses that build this buffer directly into their project schedules always end up in a better position than those that do a late search.

"In commissioning engineering, data centres, substations, BESS and even industrial plants, your hiring timeline must align with project delivery phases. Wait until Level 3 or Level 4 testing to start looking, and you've already failed. Recruitment needs to be scheduled backwards from the energisation date."

Ultimately, Anthony's point demands a complete change in mindset. Organisations have to stop looking for talent only when they are in a panic for staff. Hiring needs to run right alongside the actual project from the moment planning begins.

Delivering When the Market Says No

The challenges explained above describe a daily reality. VHR works closely with energy organisations navigating these exact resource pressures every single day.

Recently, VHR was approached by a client with an urgent requirement to hire an Applications Engineer based in the UK. The client needed someone to assist with their diesel generator products; however, due to their strict salary budget, they were priced out of the market by their competitors.

“The market won't move for you, so you either move your budget or move your expectations.”

Going after rival manufacturers with a standard headhunt would have been the obvious move, but it was a dead end. Candidates at those companies wanted salaries that our client simply wouldn't match, and chasing them would have just wasted time for little or no reward. So we moved expectations instead of budget, widening the search beyond diesel generator manufacturers to candidates with transferable experience who'd take the role at the client's price point.

The strategy paid off perfectly; we secured a degree-qualified electrical engineer who already knew the exact components inside out. Even better, the final hire came in at £10,000 under the client’s budget, making the move commercially straightforward for both sides.

The interview process happened as planned, moving quickly from an initial call with the Sales Director straight to a face-to-face with senior management. Afterwards, the client went out of their way to praise VHR for finding the perfect fit in such a tough market, especially appreciating the creative thinking that made it happen.

This outcome didn't happen by our team sitting around and waiting for the candidates to appear. It happened because the search started with a sharp brief and a clear strategy, backed by the market insight to look in the right places rather than the most predictable ones.

In the energy and renewables sector, that precise distinction between being reactive or strategic is what separates success from failure.

Talk to Our Team 

If you are planning your next project phase and want to get ahead of the hiring curve, VHR can help. Our specialists work extensively across the entire renewables space, from offshore wind and solar to battery storage and grid infrastructure. 

We understand how tight project timelines can interact with severe role shortages, and we know what it takes to secure top talent in this fast-moving market.

VHR maintains a live network of professionals across the major grid and protection engineering fields. These are the roles where the recruitment process drags out the longest, and where your only realistic option is often reaching candidates who aren't even looking for a new job.

If your organisation is struggling with stagnant vacancies, mapping out a project phase on a one-to-two-year horizon, or simply need to test a workforce plan against actual market supply, then get in touch with the VHR Energy and Renewables team. Get in Touch.

The sooner we start that conversation, the better we can protect your project timeline.