Co-directors of Birkbeck’s Research Centre for Environment and Sustainability, Dr Pam Yeow and Dr Becky Briant react to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, reflecting on the importance of environmental stewardship as part of future skill-sets.
A Paradigm Shift in Professional Skills
The landscape of professional competencies is undergoing a fundamental transformation. For the first time in its reporting history, the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 has elevated environmental stewardship to the ranks of the top ten fastest-growing skills required for the future workforce (2025-2030). This milestone, highlighted in AACSB’s 2025 State of Business Education Report, signals more than a mere trend – it represents a critical recalibration of how we conceptualise career readiness in an era of environmental crisis.
The Green Transition as Economic Driver
The WEF report identifies five macrotrends reshaping labour markets: technological change, economic uncertainty, geoeconomic fragmentation, demographic shifts, and crucially, green transition. This green transition encompasses both climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts, representing one of the most significant employment drivers of the coming decade.
The employment implications are substantial. Climate change adaptation is projected to become the third-largest contributor to net global job growth by 2030, generating approximately 5 million additional positions. Climate change mitigation follows closely, contributing an estimated 3 million net jobs. Meanwhile, developments in energy generation, storage, and distribution technologies are expected to create an additional 1 million positions, making it the second-largest technology-based contributor to employment growth, trailing only artificial intelligence and information processing technologies.
Emerging Professional Roles and Market Dynamics
The WEF report shows that this transformation is already manifesting in concrete occupational changes. Environmental Engineers and Renewable Energy Engineers have emerged among the top 15 fastest-growing professions, alongside expanding roles for Sustainability Specialists and Renewable Energy Technicians. The data corroborates broader market trends, with “green hiring” consistently outperforming general labour market hiring patterns in recent years.
The impact extends beyond traditional environmental sectors. Green transition macrotrends are driving some of the most significant labour market transformations globally, creating complex patterns of job growth and decline. According to the WEF (2025:30), “climate change adaption is expected to be the third-largest contributor to net growth in global jobs by 2030”. This is corroborated by data from LinkedIn’s Global Green Skills Reports 2023 and 2024 which confirm the rise in green postings and demand for green skills.
From the WEF report 2025, the top ten industries that consider environmental stewardship as an important skill include the obvious ones such as oil and gas and agriculture, but also supply chain and transportation, infrastructure, and professional services.
Regional Variations and Strategic Implications
The United Kingdom presents a particularly compelling case study in this transformation. WEF 2025 note that British companies report higher rates of anticipated business transformation due to climate adaptation investments compared to their global counterparts, with 56% expecting significant changes to their operations. This heightened sensitivity to environmental factors positions the UK labour market as especially influenced by green transition dynamics over the next five years.
The fastest-growing roles in the UK market reflect this reality, featuring Autonomous and Electric Vehicle Specialists, Environmental Engineers, and Renewable Energy Engineers prominently. These positions emerge from the intersection of carbon reduction efforts, climate adaptation strategies, and technological advancement in energy systems.
The Upskilling Imperative
Organisations are responding to these shifts through strategic workforce development. The WEF 2025 report’s research indicates that 85% of companies plan to upskill their existing workforce, while 70% intend to hire staff with new skills to meet emerging business needs. This dual approach—internal development and external recruitment—reflects the urgency and scale of the required transformation.
The convergence of climate adaptation, geoeconomic fragmentation, and expanding digital access creates a complex environment where sustainability expertise intersects with global collaboration capabilities. Modern professionals must navigate increasingly fragmented yet climate-sensitive business environments, requiring sophisticated understanding of both environmental systems and international cooperation mechanisms.
Implications for Higher Education and Professional Development
This paradigm shift carries profound implications for postgraduate education and professional development strategies. At Birkbeck, within our cross-faculty Research Centre for Environment and Sustainability, we encourage research and knowledge exchange across disciplines, because we recognise that sustainability skills and knowledge are not just confined to environmental science programmes but essential across business, humanities and social science curricula and research agendas.
In addition, we offer a range of freestanding and bespoke continuing professional development opportunities, covering a wide range of relevant environment and sustainability areas, as showcased in this summer’s Climate and Sustainability for the Future Online Workshop Series. To find out more, contact our Environmental Education team on env-edu@bbk.ac.uk. We also offer longstanding postgraduate courses that have been upskilling professionals across multiple sectors in greater depth for over a decade, in Environment and Sustainability, Climate Change and Sustainable Cities amongst others, all of which can be completed in the evenings alongside full-time, demanding jobs.
The evidence suggests we are witnessing not merely the emergence of new job categories, but a fundamental redefinition of professional competence itself. Environmental stewardship represents a meta-skill that increasingly underpins effectiveness across diverse sectors and roles and there are many ways of developing this skill alongside paid work. Developing this competency is becoming as essential as digital literacy was to previous generations.
Preparing for an Environmentally-Integrated Future
The elevation of environmental stewardship to a top-tier professional skill reflects a broader societal recognition that environmental responsibility has moved from the periphery to the centre of economic activity. This shift demands urgent attention from educators, policymakers, and professional development specialists.
As we advance toward 2030, the professionals who will thrive are those who can seamlessly integrate environmental considerations into their core competencies, regardless of their primary field. The future belongs not to environmental specialists alone, but to professionals across all disciplines who understand that environmental stewardship is fundamental to sustainable economic success.
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