Analysis puts UK solar jobs at 25,000

Oct 13, 2011 - As many as 25,000 people are currently employed in the UK solar industry, according to the latest analysis of the Renewable Energy Association (REA).

This is more than an eightfold increase in the level of employment since the Feed-In Tariff scheme was introduced last year, the association said.

Stuart Pocock, REA technical director, said that 80% of the solar jobs were in installations.

The 25,000 estimate is based on data from the members of the REAL Assurance Scheme and the association said that it is likely to be lower than the real figure as the scheme members are mainly engaged in domestic installations. The estimate also does not include new manufacturing and supporting jobs such as legal, accounting and project developers.

At the moment, 4,000 solar companies are registered with REAL and with the current pace of registrations a further 7,000 jobs could be created by April 2012, according to the REA.

Besides installation firms, in the UK there are also more than 60 businesses working in the solar manufacturing supply chain as well as six solar manufacturing/assembly factories.

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