WindEurope is forecasting a significant rise in employment across Europe’s wind industry over the rest of the decade, with the sector expected to grow from 443,000 jobs today to 607,000 by 2030.
The projection comes from Europe’s Wind Energy Workforce Report, which aims to map where wind jobs sit today, what roles are most in demand, and where skills shortages are likely to bite as deployment accelerates.
On the face of it, the headline figure is a straightforward good-news story for an industry that is increasingly being asked to do two things at once: deliver more home-grown electricity for energy security, while also supporting industrial growth across Europe.
WindEurope says 211,000 of today’s 443,000 jobs are ‘direct’, spanning everything from wind farm development and manufacturing through to installation, operation and eventual decommissioning. Onshore wind remains the largest employer, but offshore is gaining ground and now accounts for 20% of direct jobs.
The catch is that the jobs growth story is tightly linked to the build-out story — and Europe is still not deploying wind fast enough to meet its own targets.
WindEurope’s projection assumes Europe installs around 30 GW of wind each year on average from 2025 to 2030. Yet, the organisation’s wider market data has repeatedly shown how hard it is for many countries to keep pace amid planning permission backlogs, grid constraints and electrification delays.
Wind build-out is still lagging targets
WindEurope’s own forecasts suggest the EU will reach 344 GW of installed wind capacity by 2030 – short of the bloc’s 425 GW target.
That matters for workforce planning, because a slower pipeline does not remove the need for skilled labour – it simply makes it harder for companies and training providers to plan consistently. WindEurope points to familiar bottlenecks that continue to slow expansion: ‘cumbersome permitting’, ‘insufficient’ grid build-out, the slow uptake of electrification, and national auction designs that do not always deliver investable projects at speed.
The scale of the overall challenge has already been reflected in previous reports from WindEurope. In last year’s report, it was found that Europe added 15 GW of new wind capacity in 2024 – well below the annual pace widely seen as necessary to meet 2030 climate and energy goals, with permitting and grid connections again among the key constraints.
Manufacturing jobs are a major part of the footprint
One of the more striking findings in WindEurope’s release is just how manufacturing-heavy the wind workforce remains.
WindEurope says nearly half of direct wind jobs in Europe are in manufacturing, supported by ‘more than 250 factories producing wind turbines and equipment for the grid connections’. It adds that the industry has invested more than €14 billion in new or expanded factories over the last two years.
The skills shortage problem is becoming more specific
Alongside the job growth projection, WindEurope is also warning that Europe’s wind sector faces ‘serious skills shortages’, and that plugging those gaps is now a prerequisite for meeting deployment ambitions.
The workforce report identifies 235 job profiles across the wind farm lifecycle and flags the roles where shortages appear most urgent. WindEurope’s headline needs before 2030 include 7,000 blade technicians, 6,500 field engineers and 5,000 pre-assembly technicians.
Those shortages will not be solved by wishful thinking – or by assuming the labour market will simply ‘adjust’. WindEurope argues Europe needs a more strategic approach to workforce planning, including scaled-up training programmes, retraining pathways from other sectors, and more harmonised certification to support cross-border mobility.
A notable emphasis is placed on vocational routes. WindEurope says ‘8 out of 10 critical roles’ where the largest shortages are expected will rely on Vocational Education and Training (VET), and calls for those career paths to be made more visible and attractive.
What happens next
As a practical next step, WindEurope says it will launch a Workforce Development Tool that will allow users to filter workforce data by country, lifecycle phase and job profile, with the aim of helping industry and policymakers anticipate training needs and target investment in new training centres.
