by David Turver
I recently published an article that included an update on the cost of green jobs. However, since then more recent data has been published by the ONS. Ed Miliband is still boasting about creating good jobs in clean renewables, so it is worth checking in from time to time to see how much these jobs actually cost the rest of us. The detailed results from the more recent data warrant a standalone article.
How Many Green Jobs are There?
From time to time, the ONS publishes data on the number of green jobs in the economy. The most recent data was published on July 18th 2025 and gives data for 2023.
The total number of green jobs in 2023 is alleged to be 690,900 up from 513,300 in 2015. Of these, 45,200 people were employed in environmental charities, 17,700 in environmental consulting and a staggering 19,400 were employed in “managerial activities of government bodies”. The lanyard class in action.
In the renewable energy sector, the number of full-time equivalent jobs in the UK for offshore wind, onshore wind and solar was 16,400, 5,900 and 20,300, respectively. As shown in Figure 1, the number of jobs in these sectors rose substantially in 2023.
The increase was caused by the number of jobs in solar power more than doubling alongside a substantial increase in offshore wind jobs. Of course such a substantial increase in renewables jobs means the energy sector is becoming less productive and of course the energy generated will likely be more expensive.
How Much do Wind and Solar Power Receive in Subsidy?
There are three subsidy regimes for renewable energy in the UK. These are Feed-in-Tariffs (FiTs), Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) and Contracts for Difference (CfDs).
Each year Ofgem publish the FiT report and dataset that details the total amount of electricity generated, total payments and the capacity installed by technology. In scheme year 14, running from April 2023 to March 2024, the total payments under the FiT scheme were £1,840 million. If we split these payments by installed capacity, we find that solar power received £1,460 million in FiT payments and wind (assumed to be onshore) received £218 million.
Details of ROCs issued can be found on the Ofgem portal. The value of ROCs related to the output period for 2023/24 was £2,618 million for offshore wind, £1,555 million for onshore wind and £561 million for solar power.
The Low Carbon Contracts Company publishes a database of CfD payments that can also be split by technology. The period 2023/24 showed subsidies increasing because gas prices subsided after the energy crisis. Offshore wind received £1,721 million in 2023/24. Because strike prices for onshore wind and solar power tend to be lower than for offshore wind, these two technologies received £55 million and £0.5 million, respectively.
The total subsidies in 2023/24 for these three sectors are around £8.1 billion. We can expect current year subsidies to be higher because all the subsidy schemes are index-linked, pushing up the value of ROCs and FiT payments. CfD strike prices have been indexed upwards too and, because the price of gas has fallen, the reference prices have fallen as well, leading to another increase in subsidies.
What is the Cost of Green Jobs?
Pulling all this together, we can add up the total subsidy received for these technologies and compare it to the number of jobs in each sector.
We can see that each offshore wind job cost £264,000 in subsidy, each onshore wind job cost over £309,000 and solar nearly £100,000. The average across all three sectors is over £192,000 per job.
Now remember, this is not a one-off payment to get a new industry up and running, it is an ongoing annual payment. The ONS does not publish its estimate of the salaries in the sector, however, the annual subsidies are far higher than any reasonable estimate of the average salaries paid in the sector.
Conclusions
It is crystal clear that all talk of a “green revolution” is simply a pipe dream. These green jobs are only a façade, Potemkin jobs to give politicians and policymakers a good sound bite and make them feel good about themselves. The idea that we can move to “green prosperity” by subsidising each job to the tune of £192,000 every year is plainly absurd. These jobs are a drag on the rest of the economy, acting as a tax on energy. We need to end this economic fantasy.
David Turver writes the Eigen Values Substack page, where this article first appeared.
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Keynes and his idiotic belief that by stealing money wealth you cresye wealth. No wonder lefties love it, austrian economics laugh at it and true libertarians loath it.
I would say the score stands 1 against 2, call it a 66% consensus if you want lol
create…effn thumb typing
Story Tip>>>Climate Change is Coming for Your Bananas | TIME
The article ends by saying that even with the climate effects, bananas will still be the cheapest fruit available. So a non-story. Except for the following false statement.
The statement might be true if there was an omnipotent world government to control GHG emissions. But there is not. Further, most countries are not radically reducing their emissions, nor are they obliged to do so under the UNFCCC Treaty (see Article 4.7) or the Paris Agreement (see Article 4.4). The US less than one seventh of global emissions to regulate, which makes emissions regulation extremely ineffective, even if the IPCC AR6 emissions pathways are simply perfect in every way.
For the UK it is much worse, as the UK is now “responsible” for less than 1% of emissions.
Is the UK still following the EU Banana Regulation?
Yes.
Bananas are a fairly uniform price in the supermarkets at 90p to 99p a kilo (about 60 cents a pound)
I thought bananas were one of the largest exports of Iceland where the heat with geo thermal.
I also thought the mono culture used was the biggest threat of all.
As far as I can see, a green job is a redundancy. Economic inactivity has a low Carbon footprint and a dependence upon Universal Credit (welfare).
Story Tip>Carbon captured: Norway launches historic CO2 ‘graveyard’
It appears the real cost per job will actually get worse. If I read this right, the subsidies will go on long after the work of installing the solar panels and bird killers. Continual subsidies for an installation that takes weeks or months means increasing payments after the jobs disappear.
That was 750 words to explain “Bastiat’s broken window fallacy“
In response to Nigel Farage announcing today that his Reform party will encourage fracking in the U.K., one of Milibrain’s energy ministers told the BBC that “We intend to ban fracking for good and make Britain a clean energy superpower to protect current and future generation’s”.
The only superpower the U.K. is capable of becoming is one of world wide derision as our manufacturing industry finally sinks under the weight of Net Zero energy costs.
Those energy ministers must think of themselves as a high priesthood with all the truth and power.
Same scam with a twist here in States. Under Biden Admin all the “job growth” turned out to be illegal aliens and government positions. Strip away the Democrat Party veneer and it was 4 years of jobs stagnation.
“The increase was caused by the number of jobs in solar power more than doubling”
Because all those solar panels won’t wash themselves..
Modern day chimney sweeps.
Basic economic fact
higher units of manpower per unit of production is a sign of less efficiency. Astonishing that renewable advocates promote less efficiency.
Another basic economic fact
Smaller footprint to produce the same unit of output is a sign of greater efficiency. Yet the footprint of wind and solar are vastly larger than a FF electric generation plant
Solar power in too far north and too cloudy UK? Are you kidding? What’s the capacity factor for the three months of winter? Eight (8)?
Rough numbers from Grok. The UK has about 18GW of solar installed. In December it produces roughly 13GWh per day. This is the mid range of Grok’s estimate, the high estimate was 17GWh and the low 9GWh.
Take the mid range and we have:
Capacity for December = 24 x 30 x 18 = 12,960
Production = 13
Capacity factor December (13 + 12,960) x 100 = 0.1 percent
Have I missed a decimal place somewhere? Or got the units confused?
It does, in fact. If you’re not facing towards it, that’s not its problem…
D./ Sandberg,
the overall capacity factor for solar in the U.K.is about 11%, for four months of winter is is a very small part of that 11%, it really produces so little and absolutely zero when the demand for power is highest.
From memory Britain is 278 out of 279 for favourable solar utilisation, Ireland was last.
There are REAL green jobs in natural resources including farming, forestry, fisheries- too often under appreciated.
Sleepy Joe’s phrase of “high paying green jobs” always made me recoil. Among other things he couldn’t grasp is that jobs are a cost, not a benefit [except to the payee]. A subsidize job is doubly gross.
Among all Democrats it is “good, high-paying, union jobs”.
The recoil is still present, perhaps augmented.
Very nice David. I know not everyone will agree but jobs created should barely be a consideration. A generation source either works or it doesn’t. Wind, solar and storage do not work everybody knows that. Stop pissing away our time, money and resources on things that don’t work. Fossil fuel and nuclear work spend our time, money and resources on them and they won’t be pissed away.
Bob,
exactly, it is a waste of resources, financial, materials and manpower., and then repeat a lot of it in twenty five years or so.
Then add all the CCUS and hydrogen nonsense and the money being thrown at that; how the energy department even gets approval to finance all this waste is baffling, given our alleged black hole?
Those who forget or choose to ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat the mistakes.
In the Great Depression of the 1930s, The New Deal was started. $ billions spent. The idea was to get people working to kick start the economy.
What happened? It was terminated due to oversized Federal debt.
How good was it? Well, for the duration of each of the many projects, a group of people were employed. When the project ended, those people went back to being unemployed.
The problem is not “good, high-paying union green jobs.” The problem is, that employment is not sustainable. The Green New Deal makes the same mistakes made nearly 100 years ago.