BESS recruitment in the UK

A market growing faster than its workforce

Modo Energy reported the operational battery fleet in Great Britain at 7.6 GW at the end of the second quarter of 2026. The Clean Power 2030 Action Plan sets out a need for 23 to 27 GW by 2030. Closing that gap means hundreds of projects moving through construction and commissioning in a few years, each needing people to deliver it.

The wider clean energy labour market is tight as well. The government's Clean Energy Jobs Plan, published in October 2025, expects clean energy to bring 400,000 extra jobs by 2030 and names 31 priority occupations. Skills England's assessment in August 2026 projects those priority occupations to grow by 63,000, or 71 per cent, between 2025 and 2030, and lists electrical engineers, engineering technicians and engineering project managers among them.

Which roles are hardest to fill

In our experience the pressure is greatest where battery storage overlaps with electricity networks: grid connection specialists, high voltage engineers, commissioning managers and people who can run a project through energisation. These are the same skills transmission and distribution operators are hiring, often with larger training programmes.

Commercial roles are also scarce. Tolling agreements, revenue floors and capacity market obligations have made structuring and optimisation skills central to how projects are financed. This is STORIQ analysis rather than a published statistic, and we show our evidence on the Talent Index.

Specialist recruitment or executive search?

For senior and business critical appointments we run retained executive search: a mapped market, discreet approaches and structured assessment. For specialist engineering and project roles we also run focused recruitment, using the same market knowledge at a faster pace and a lower cost per hire.

Whichever route you choose, write the brief around the stage the project is at. A team taking a portfolio from Gate 2 offer to financial close needs different people from one energising its first sites.

Reviewed by STORIQ Partners, October 2026. Figures are as reported by the sources listed, at the dates shown.