What do we know about green jobs in the UK? And what are the barriers to getting more people into green jobs? There appears to be significant demand among both businesses and potential workers to have more people in green jobs and yet little is known about how to make this happen.

This evidence review, conducted by the Behavioural Insights Team, looks across the evidence so far on green jobs, including how green jobs are defined and what barriers there are to expanding them. It identifies four “As” that are crucial to creating more green jobs: awareness, how much people know about green jobs; attractiveness, how desirable green jobs are; availability, how many green jobs exist; and ability, the skills required to do green jobs.

The review concludes that ability – providing the right skills and training – is probably the most significant barrier to increasing green jobs and recommends focusing work more closely on this area. Awareness, particularly of the career paths and choices involved in moving into green jobs, is also identified as an important area for more work.