Unfilled vacancies and skills shortages: The vicious circle threatening the energy supercycle

Does Australia has enough workers to build the enormous infrastructure ambitions of the renewable energy and data centre booms? A new piece of research says that, right now, it does not. And the problem traces all the way back to the training level.

The government-backed Powering Skills Organisation (PSO) has added another data point to an already-worrisome picture, one that suggests there aren’t enough people today with the skills, or inclination, to work on the nation’s big energy infrastructure.

Half of employers in the energy industry cannot fill vacancies and two-thirds say there are skills shortages, according to the PSO report. 

“PSO previously estimated [in 2025] that an additional 42,000 energy trades workers would be required by 2030.”

This report however says that number is already out of date, and PSO is doing more work now to figure out what it might be in 2026.

“Meeting this demand would require around 22,000 additional apprentices in training, an increase of approximately 40 per cent above apprenticeship figures reported in 2026,” the report says.

But there is also a chance the industry is its own worst enemy, as only a quarter of businesses surveyed say they employ apprentices, a problem for electricians in particular given 90 per cent of electricians get trained on the job. 

Image: PSO

The evidence is already apparent that energy projects have seemingly bottomless demand for mainly electrical talent.

But unlike the risk of a return to the boom-bust patterns warned of in a similar report from 2023, which said a minimum of 13,000 new tradies were needed by 2025, the PSO report is calling a “national energy supercycle”.

What this looks like for jobs in Australia is “a decades-long period of strong demand for trades workers,” it says.

“Rather than isolated peaks in activity over a typical five-to-ten-year cycle, multiple sectors are simultaneously competing for the same skilled workforce, placing sustained pressure on recruitment, training and retention,” the High Load, Short Supply report says. 

What’s different this time is that it’s not just the energy sector demanding tradies. 

Also in need to staff is the build out for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, the National Housing Accord with its 1 million new homes goal, Future Made in Australia re-industrialisation projects, and Net Zero plans such as the federal home battery rebate which has tied up most solar and battery installers in the country since July 2025. 

Both the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and energy developers have complained over the last few years of a lack of electrical engineers – the former often saying that the latter have been pinching its staff. 

In June, Fortescue opened an electrician training centre in Perth, anticipating the day it will be sucking one in 21 of Western Australia into its Pilbara energy projects. 

Some industry experts in Western Australia are questioning how state-owned companies Synergy and Horizon, which have major network builds ahead of them, will compete for staff when the iron ore miner’s transmission and energy projects are in full swing.

Massive data centres that handle AI services are adding another challenge, with PSO estimating the new industry will double the number of construction tradies needed come 2030.  

In July, ETU national secretary Michael Wright said 1 in 10 of the union’s members are currently working on data centres. 

Already the industry is absorbing many tradies, as 30 data centres currently under construction across Australia, and 17 wind projects are being built or in commissioning as are 36 solar projects and 79 batteries, according to project tracker Renewmap.

Also under construction are five green hydrogen projects, three gas power plants, and two pumped hydro plants, and transmission lines in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia. 

Behind them is a wall of projects which have all of their approvals in hand, meaning they’re waiting on financing or final checks to start being built: 179 battery, gas, hydrogen, wind and solar projects are in development.

It’s the regional booster shot that Australian governments have been promising, and failing to deliver, for decades.

In Gippsland, councils have been planning for years to reskill former coal power station employees and using the regions’ universities and TAFEs to train local students for anticipated jobs in offshore wind in particular. 

Councils in those areas are asking conservative politicians how they plan to make up the difference if energy projects in those areas are cancelled. 

Other councils are more flatfooted, trying to manage the prospect of big projects that both suck in skilled local labour as well as bring in extra people who absorb small towns’ limited health resources and housing. 

If there aren’t enough people to do the work, the big question will be who gets them, and when.

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