Why water and environment employers must start designing their own training pathways

03 November 2025

Developing skills for new career entrants through community engagement and partnership working

As UK universities welcome another wave of freshers this autumn, there’s a chance that these incoming students might still face a significant mismatch between their environmental training and the urgent needs of nature-based solutions on the ground.

Recent government analysis estimates that one in five UK jobs will require new or changed skills in the transition to net zero, with around three million workers needing some form of reskilling in the coming years. The Climate Change Committee has projected that low-carbon sectors could generate between 135,000 and 725,000 new jobs by 2030 – but only if the workforce is ready, qualified and well distributed.

These gaps are particularly acute for those new to the sector, whether young people, or those transitioning into the industry from elsewhere. These individuals are often willing and interested in the environmental sector, but lack practical exposure, certification or structured pathways into roles. Without better alignment between education, community engagement and employer needs, many of the people the sector is training will struggle to find roles, and many of the projects trying to deliver nature-based solutions may struggle to find a workforce.

The scale of the green skills gap

The term ‘green jobs’ covers a huge spectrum: from renewable energy engineers to biodiversity surveyors, from ecologists designing flood alleviation schemes to rangers leading volunteer work on riversides. What unites them is the urgent demand for people with the right blend of technical knowledge, practical skills and collaborative capacity. At present, supply falls well short.

While much of the national conversation on green jobs focuses on renewable energy and construction, the water and environmental sector faces its own acute skills challenges, with CIWEM’s own members highlighting persistent shortages of work-ready staff able to combine environmental understanding with safety, logistics and partnership delivery skills. Addressing this gap means recognising that ‘green skills’ are not just about climate literacy or biodiversity awareness, but hands-on capability to deliver nature-based solutions safely, effectively and collaboratively.

Preparing early-career entrants

The sector’s skills gap is not just about numbers; it is also about pathways. Too often, we prepare graduates to enter environmental roles but fail to create equally visible, respected routes for early-career entrants or those coming through vocational channels.

At CIWEM’s Flood and Coast Conference and Exhibition 2025 in June, I led a workshop on Stewardship Skills Schemes, free training programmes run by Riverlution as a route in for those struggling to make that first step into the industry. These schemes, developed for young career entrants or more mature career changers, provide experience of invasive-species control, riparian woodland management, simple asset inspection and maintenance activities.

Along the way participants gain recognised qualifications and accreditations. These can make the difference between success and failure at interview, with certifications in practical skills such as pesticide application, chainsaw use and safety working near water essential in many roles. Even if an employer still goes on to carry out internal training and standardisation within their teams, the fact that a prospective new starter already has a few important qualifications, will put them ahead of their untrained peers.

Partnership working

Despite similar skills needed across the sector, there is a danger of silos forming. At a recent green skills conference in Hull, a lot of large employers were bemoaning the lack of training and qualification solutions to suit their needs. Rather than creating the necessary pathways for themselves, they are waiting for training or funding to be made available by government or established training providers. My question is: why would an employer, who best understands the training requirements for their industry and specific business, need someone else to provide that solution for them?

Employers within the sector can participate in apprenticeship trailblazers, which are panels formed from employers and awarding bodies to help shape the apprenticeships our industry needs. The trouble is that those qualifications will be written and released even without the input of many employers.; Iif they aren’t fit for purpose, it may be several years before they are re-visited. This is where partnership and collaboration between stakeholders across the sector comes in, from employers to landowners in control of water assets and habitats, from government agencies to training providers. Partnership between these entities can help shape those qualifications and training routes to suit the whole industry. They do so far more effectively in partnership than if just one or a small handful of stakeholders participate. Such multi-stakeholder collaboration helps make training and qualification routes fit for purpose but also ensures that training providers and awarding bodies are accountable to industry.

As well as engaging with the creation and accreditation of apprenticeships, employers or partnerships of multiple employers can also create their own pipelines of training. These may combine accredited training and community engagement, perhaps through engaging and training volunteers or ‘NEET’ (not in education, employment or training) members of the community ready for next steps into employment.

Community engagement is not an optional extra in this process – it’s one of the most powerful tools for both education and delivery. The stewardship model uses active participation in river improvement projects as a gateway for learning: residents, volunteers and local groups take part in habitat work, litter clearance and invasive species removal while gaining exposure to the professional standards expected within the sector. This approach connects people with the rivers on their doorstep, builds environmental literacy and reveals new career pathways to those who might never have considered the water environment as a workplace. Crucially, it also strengthens the social licence of restoration projects: when local communities have had a hand in improving and maintaining their rivers, they are far more likely to support future interventions and act as long-term stewards of those assets.

This community driven work helps deliver on otherwise poorly funded projects while addressing skills gaps in careers entrants. Yes, it requires some investment, but that shouldn’t be an issue – many employers already invest in the continuing professional development of more established staff. In an ideal world, of course, schools, colleges and universities would be producing work-ready career entrants; the reality, however, is that they are not doing so, and it doesn’t make sense for the sector to wait for them to start.

This investment in collaborative, on-the-job training for career entrants, including some carefully picked formal training, perhaps leading to an apprenticeship, delivers a triple dividend. Not only does it create a workforce for the water and environmental management sector, it offers social impact and community empowerment by making water and environmental management issues relevant to communities and individuals.

As a countryside manager by training, and having spent over a decade in land-based further education, I’ve seen people enter the industry from a range of backgrounds. Whatever the background, it tends to be those who have benefitted from high quality hands-on experience that make the strongest starts. As employers, we can make that possible: all it needs is partnership working and taking ownership of the training journey for ourselves.

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Read more about the training needs of the water and environment sector in CIWEM’s Your Future Report.

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