Capital Green Talent

Welcome to the “war for solar talent” (part 1)

Regan George — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 01:29:27 PST

Whilst I have always had a slight problem with the “war” metaphor, the term “war for talent” was coined in the late 90’s to refer to the increasingly competitive landscape for recruiting and retaining talented employees.

As the debate goes on about exactly how big the UK solar industry will grow to over the coming years, there is one certainty; the UK solar industry is facing a chronic skill shortage or what we in the industry call a “war for talent”.

The early signs are already here – many of the UK’s “established” solar firms, while growing are losing an extremely high number of their experienced staff to well-funded start-ups, dynamic home-grown early-stage solar companies and to the big German manufacturers & developers hitting on our shores.

Although we are not seeing outright war yet, there are dozens of many smaller less conspicuous battles being fought as this blog goes out.

If the impending “war for talent” is not high on the agendas of board rooms and executive suits (can I say “war rooms”) of any ambitious solar company in the UK, beware.

Over the next few weeks we are going to be writing a series on the “impending war” for Solar Talent. Essentially how to win the small battles, to plan and fight against the onslaught and ensure victory

2010 – The Year of FREE Solar…

Regan George — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 01:33:43 PST

If I was to put a label on 2010 I would say it’s “the year of free solar”, thanks to companies like A Shade Greener, Home Sun and ISIS Solar thousands and thousands of UK residents have now got “free” panels generating “free” energy.

Credit (is that the right word) also needs to be given to the British media for giving the “free solar brigade” a helping hand with a massive amount of “free” publicity. Ever since I saw a BBC lunchtime TV report “Solar panels for Roofs offered free of charge” there seems to have been a pretty constant stream of newspaper, magazine, internet etc. stories and articles surrounding the “free” solar movement.

Although the media coverage hasn’t always been kind – I guess if you pay your PR agency enough (and you don’t offer free solar) the press will just about say anything.

So for the thousands that now have free panels we ALSO have a million other UK home owner who have now been introduced to feed-in-tariff (FiTs), have managed to get their heads around the benefits and have probably spoken to their banks manager about re-mortgaging.

In fairness, if I had a spare £10k or a willing bank manager and an un-shaded south facing roof I won’t be going for the “free solar” option. Let’s face it, other than lining the pockets of these companies and their bankers, what’s the point in saving £120.00 a year on your electricity bill when you make get a return-on-your-investment (ROI) of 8% to 10%.

So well done the “free solar mob”, ROI aside you have kicked started the UK Solar Industry brilliantly.

What will we be labelling 2011?

150,000 Solar Jobs in the UK by 2016?

Regan George — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 09:13:02 PST

I started researching the UK solar job market in March 2009. The first site I go to when trying to get a handle on the number of jobs in a certain sector is www.indeed.co.uk. This site is what’s called a “job aggregator”, in simple terms indeed has technology which finds jobs with certain keywords on multiple job boards, career sections of corporate websites etc. and brings them back into their site.

In March 2009, when searching using the keyword “Solar” on www.indeed.co.uk, 700 jobs came back. Eighteen months later, when you search using the keyword “solar” www.indeed.co.uk comes back with 3400 jobs. You don’t need to be a mathematician or a Management Consultant to spot there is a trend..

While sites like indeed and other job aggregator can’t be used to give you an accurate guide on the precise amount of “live and real” jobs in a market (too many duplicates etc.) the percentage increase from March 2009 to November 2010 is startling. We can safely assume that there not be many other “jobs” seeing such a massive increase as we battle our way through recession.

The above figures reflect the last eighteen months, what’s the future going to bring for the UK solar job market? Here is what some in the market are saying.

In October the Electronics, Sensors and Photonics Knowledge Transfer Network (ESP KTN) forecast that UK Solar Electricity industry could providing 150,000 jobs by 2016. Personally I think the ESP KTN figures are vastly inflated, and anyone with an acronym that long needs to be carefully considered. One only needs to consider that the entire German solar industry is reported to employ around 150,000 people.

However, I feel much more realistic figures presented in a report in June by the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) claiming in excess of 100,000 people could be employed in the installation of solar across the country by 2030. When we look beyond installation, up and down stream would think the entire UK solar industry could be employing around 140,000.

OK – not much need to talk more about the numbers, anyone involved in the UK solar industry today will already have a good feeling that we are on the start of a massive wave (a .green Tsunami!), how big, only time will tell.

However with growth, comes growing pains and already I am witnessing them.

How big do you think it will get?

The Germans are coming…..

Regan George — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 05:40:06 PST

What do Centrosolar, Solon, Wirsol, Azur Solar and Krannich have in common? They are German solar firms that have taken the early initiative and opened offices in the UK – while I’m sure the entire global solar industry want a slice of one the fastest growing markets in the world these firms are not taking the “let’s wait and see” strategy.

With hundreds of MegaWatts under development (well maybe a lot are still in planning) and some pundits saying the UK could be a GigaWatt market in 2010 what are the others waiting for?

Are the majors still in the planning phase?
Yes they are. I’m sure most of the major players in the planning phase and the one thing we all know about the Germans is when they have done the planning the execution will be done with beautiful efficiency.

Is it the rumours circulating that FiTs maybe cut or altered before the 2013 scheduled review?
The UK government will hold its nerve; rightfully or wrongfully it’s not the treasury that’s putting its hand in its pocket to cover FiTs its UK electricity customers. The UK government is serious about renewables and I repeat, WILL HOLD ITS NERVE!

Concerns over supply chain bottlenecks?
Global supply chain issues aside – it’s roughly 600 miles between Germany and UK, the demographics are almost ideal. With world class German inventory management, lorry loads of quality solar/PV products could be crossing the channel in hours.

The lack of appropriately skilled labour?

With relatively high unemployment, the rapid growth of solar/PV training schools and the highest ratio of temporary staffing levels across Europe it won’t take long before for a lot of UK construction workers are retrained.

Summary
OK – What I’ve pointed out is hardly the kind of SWOT analysis which is being discussed in board-rooms in Germany right now, but you see where I’m coming from.

The market opportunity in the UK is massive and while the majority of the market is still learning to walk (I know some exceptions – I must point out) there is plenty of time for the major German players (and the smaller smart firms) to come over and gobble up market share.

By this time next year I’m sure we’ll see the likes of IBC, Phoenix , Gehricher, andDonauer in a neighbourhood near you (well that’s if you live in the UK) – by this time next year the UK solar landscape is going to look completely different.