Wind Turbine Jobs & Careers
We may get frustrated in the UK with the weather being wet, windy and generally cold, with the occasional warmer days, but these conditions will help us become a world leader in renewable energy, through harnessing our most abundant source; wind. This will also provide us with more exciting job opportunities and careers.
Over the next 10 years or so it is anticipated that the wind energy industry will grow from 5,000 up to potentially around 60,000 employees in the UK. This may in part be due to the fact that the UK must meet EU targets of reducing CO2 emissions by 15 percent before 2020, or the UK aim to reach 30 percent by this date; either way the wind industry is increasing and the demand for new aspiring workers in this sector is going to grow.
This article details from our research, what the types of jobs there are in the industry, how much you can be expected to earn from each area, where to look and what companies you could work for.
Roles within the wind industry
In the UK there are hundreds of companies who are set up to engage in wind energy, ranging from large utility companies to small wind turbine manufacturing companies, all of which will need more and more employees as the wind turbine industry continues to grow. There are careers from turbine engineers to design and development careers and thousands of people will be needed with backgrounds in engineering, science, technology and maths.
Wind turbine technicians and engineers
Want to help save the environment and provide a sustainable power supply, whilst practising your engineering skills in difficult and challenging conditions, in maintaining a wind turbine either onshore or offshore; then becoming a wind turbine technician may be a role for you.
Wind turbine technicians will generally work for the turbine manufacturer, they will have come from an electrical or mechanical background either from a suitable vocational or academic degree, experience or apprenticeships, be physically fit and obviously they will need to be able to work at heights.
Wind turbine technicians start off as trainees and can work their way up to become senior technicians or team leaders. There are also apprenticeship schemes available for wind turbine technicians. Wind turbine technicians can earn between 20 and 40k per year, depending on the experience and level of technician.
Image Credit: Danish Wind Industry Association
Wind turbine design and manufacture
The research and design aspect of wind turbines is carried out by people with degrees in vocational subjects such as electrical and mechanical engineering to physics and mathematics, whilst in the manufacturing side there is big demand for craft and technician level engineers. The routes that can be taken into this role are from vocational qualifications such as HND’s and HNC’s or specialised engineering degrees. In specialist roles extra on-the-job training is given. In a design and development type of role 40k per year can be achieved.
Who to work for and where to look
While browsing for wind turbine jobs the below companies were the one that stood out:
- Siemens Energy
- GE Energy
- Centrica Energy
- SSE Renewable
- Scottish Wind
- RE Power
Check out their websites for more information and job vacancies.
More Information
As you may already know there is no clear route into the sector and there is an abundance of information, which all can’t be covered in this article so we have provided some links to useful sites for more information.
http://www.bwea.com/jobs/skills/careers.html
http://jobs.ewea.org/