Section 5 - Future Skills/Skills for Investment
Key Actions and Recommendations
5.1 Ensure the Investment Zone and wider skills funds are best shaped to support Greenpower Park and the related electric vehicle/battery development investment.
5.2 Coventry City Council and partners to use purchasing power when procuring goods and services. Encouraging service providers and contractors to employ apprentices and provide Green Skills training.
5.3 Ensure the skills system can flexibly respond to emerging energy sector needs, informed by Coventry’s ‘Energy Plan’.
We have ambition to build a local skills ecosystem that is agile and responsive to investor needs. We will ensure we build on partnerships between Coventry City Council and our Higher, Further and Adult Education partners, engaging with key sectors and industries in the region and those working in the business support ecosystem and working together to realise our collective ambition for a thriving green economy in the region.
Coventry and the West Midlands have a clear competitive advantage in electric vehicle and battery production. (Location Quotient 8.47) over other areas of the UK, with the planned Coventry and Warwickshire Greenpower Park Investment Zone site presenting a unique opportunity for attracting new major investment. The Investment Zone’s targeted supply chain and R&D programmes will be crucial in enabling local Advanced Manufacturing SMEs to “pivot” and service growing global market opportunities (projected to quadruple to £823bn by 2030). We will work to ensure Investment Zone and wider skills funds are used to support this investment, with the Greenpower Park expected to create up to 6000 jobs alone.
The City Council and its partners will need to use their purchasing power when procuring goods and services to encourage service providers and contractors to employ apprentices and provide on the job training. IEMA’s ‘A Blueprint for a Green Workforce identifies the fundamental barriers to the development of Green Skills and gives lots of practical examples of what public bodies and private companies can achieve to develop the green skills within their workforce and to provide opportunities for people wishing to upskill or re-train.
We will need to be receptive to changes in legislation and government initiatives, rules and regulations which can drive changes in the way services are delivered or goods manufactured all of which will in turn place a demand on certain key green skills for the future.
For example, the Government’s drive for the development of heat networks will have significant impacts upon the market and the future installation of new technologies to scale across the Country as well as creating new regulatory roles to shape and inform their future delivery. Local Authorities across the land will be in search of energy professionals Heat Network Zone Co-ordinators with knowledge and expertise in the development, management and delivery of heat networks and district heating schemes as well as the extensive use of heat exchange systems elsewhere. The companies providing the heat networks will also require professionals with similar skills.
Coventry City Council have worked together with E.ON and Mott MacDonald on the ‘Coventry Energy Plan.’ This collaborative study explored various scenarios to accelerate local carbon emission reduction, increase energy security and stimulate innovation, pilots and local job creation through projects that directly deliver net zero investment or actions that benefit Coventry. The Energy Plan found that under a maximum ambition scenario, by 2038 Coventry city could create an estimated 2,000 full-time employment opportunities to 2038 (30,000 years of jobs equivalent to 2,000 per year over 15 years), especially through local supply chains. These jobs are predominantly driven by assumed high levels of investment in deep retrofit of buildings for businesses and residents. Whilst building retrofit is challenging, it drives a lot of benefit including wider positive benefits through employment opportunities.
We will need to anticipate such changes in the market and assess the likely skills needed, establishing the likely sources of people with related skills and the nature of additional skills for which the training is needed. We will need to identify the organisations with the ability to support the development of those skills and the provision apprenticeships.