Talent plan Energy
The energy transition is more urgent than ever. Geopolitical tensions, high costs, grid congestion and a shortage of technical talent are hampering progress. This has a direct impact on the business climate, overall prosperity and the achievement of climate targets.
The Arnhem–Nijmegen region, as part of Lifeport, has everything it needs to make a difference here: a strong ecosystem with international players (TenneT, Alliander, DNV, ElaadNL), innovation hubs (Connectr, CleanTech Park Arnhem, NEcN) and a rich history in energy. This positions the region as the Netherlands’ premier energy hotspot.
A major challenge is the shortage of skilled workers. Over the next ten years, around 15,000 additional professionals will be needed — from technicians to systems architects — whilst the nature of work is changing and new skills are required.
With this Energy Talent Plan, we combine forces of education, business and government. We focus on recruiting, training, retraining and retaining talent to accelerate the energy transition and sustainably strengthen Arnhem Nijmegen's position as an Energy Hotspot.
The Lifeport Region Arnhem Nijmegen needs about 15,000 extra professionals for the energy transition in the next ten years. There are now 1.7 times more people working in the energy sector than the national average; in 2023, there were 15,710 energy jobs adding €2.3 billion in value. A further 25,000 new jobs are expected to be created in Energy and High Tech up to 2034, including replacement. This demand set against an ageing workforce presents a major challenge.
So although there is considerable demand for technical talent in the energy sector, most existing initiatives focus mainly on executive profiles. However, companies in the Arnhem-Nijmegen region also need theoretically educated, innovative, digitalisation and beta talent that can contribute to solutions in the energy transition. Through these solutions, aimed among other things at labour-saving smartening, we reduce the pressure on the demand for technical executive talent and thus become more productive together.
The Energy Talent Plan connects existing initiatives, initiates new projects and promotes Lifelong Development to effectively accelerate the energy transition.
Energy and Human Capital
The energy transition and human capital development in Lifeport Energy take place within a broad policy framework at European, national and regional level. Nationally, the government promotes the sustainability of energy generation and infrastructure, for example through the Climate Agreement.
In the Lifeport Region Arnhem Nijmegen, the existing Human Capital Agreement (HCA) forms the basis for a joint approach to labour market shortages in the three main sectors (Health, High-Tech and Energy). Education, business and government work together to strengthen the inflow, transfer and sustainable employability of talent.
The Energy Talent Plan strengthens and scales up initiatives to recruit, train and retain executive talent and starts initiatives for innovative talent. As such, the Energy Talent Plan is a detailed elaboration of the HCA for one specific sector and is therefore consistent with other regional sector-specific talent plans, such as that of Semicon/High-Tech. It also dovetails with overarching regional agreements such as the Internship Pact.
