Battery/Solar
61%
Solar techs have the lowest requirements of any jobs
35%
Battery is the most likely to require only Bachelor’s degrees for research and science roles
None
Bachelor's
Master's/PhD
Education Level:
Battery
"Clean"
Fusion
Geothermal
Hydrogen
Hydropower
Nuclear
Solar
Wind
Energy type
73%
4%
79%
1%
N/A*
82%
73%
1%
60%
6%
82%
1%
75%
1%
Technician and Installation
83%
14%
1%
91%
7%
N/A*
N/A*
67%
32%
N/A*
94%
3%
67%
31%
1%
Sales
48%
23%
28%
47%
43%
11%
26%
23%
50%
N/A*
46%
33%
18%
49%
23%
26%
42%
42%
14%
44%
41%
15%
Research and Science
67%
32%
1%
71%
26%
1%
N/A*
67%
33%
58%
41%
1%
56%
38%
2%
71%
28%
67%
32%
Project Management
67%
28%
1%
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
63%
31%
72%
17%
75%
19%
71%
19%
Operations
N/A*
70%
29%
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
80%
18%
1%
N/A*
Marketing and Communications
68%
15%
16%
78%
15%
8%
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
67%
15%
18%
69%
18%
12%
Legal, Policy, and Tax
65%
31%
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
70%
26%
N/A*
IT, Programming, and Software Engineering
75%
24%
1%
76%
23%
N/A*
N/A*
66%
33%
1%
N/A*
69%
31%
70%
30%
Finance, Markets, Investment, and Trading
62%
35%
3%
67%
33%
32%
63%
4%
61%
35%
4%
53%
45%
1%
56%
41%
2%
61%
37%
1%
56%
40%
2%
Development Engineering and Systems Design
scroll to see all 10 job types
Education Comparison for Energy Sectors
Education
Research and science roles in fusion are far and away the most likely to require a PhD, which makes sense, given that you’ll be working on the bleeding edge of cleantech. Conversely, technician and installation and sales jobs in solar are the least likely to specify any educational requirements among all energy types. And financial jobs across energy sectors tend not to mention educational requirements at all—they just ask that you be a savvy dealmaker or quant.
As for the kinds of degrees that job seekers need to get into clean energy (when a requirement is listed): Computer science and mathematics degrees are frequently mentioned, and often together—a sign that they are viewed by many employers as interchangeable. Engineers overwhelmingly need engineering degrees, not just a diploma from somewhere in the STEM nebula. Alas, degrees in social sciences and the humanities are rarely mentioned.
By Andrew Thompson
A data-driven guide to the skills you need and the opportunities you'll find
Where the Clean Energy Jobs Are
Experience
Education
Salary
Geography
Who’s Hiring
Intro
Trends in the labor market come and go, tech changes, and industries disappear. But putting an electron on the grid without harming the planet is something that will never fully go out of fashion. Indeed, despite cooling corporate enthusiasm for electric vehicles, some struggling cleantech companies, and the largely successful counterassault on corporate ESG frameworks, the demand for workers who know how to generate, sell, and trade carbon-free electricity remains strong. At the beginning of 2024, one in 16 of all new jobs was in the clean energy industry, according to E2, a clean energy trade association, and the sector grew three times faster than the job market overall in 2023. In September, LinkedIn reported that the hiring rate for U.S. workers with climate-related skills was 80% above the national average. The trend may change under a second Trump administration. But runaway investment in AI has forced tech companies to build their own sources of energy to power resource-intensive computation at scale while still striving to meet their own carbon targets. Running a home on solar panels has only become more cost-efficient. And scientists are still chasing a future powered by hydrogen and fusion. For those curious about entering the world’s most important industry (or navigating within it), we’re here to help. Fast Company analyzed more than 26,000 Google job listings between June and August 2024 across 10 fields and for eight energy types (plus the broader designation of “clean”). We examined everything from what you can earn to how much experience you’ll need (if any). And take heart: Unlike all that time you might have spent learning Solidity to get in on blockchain or working on a SaaS app of dubious usefulness, any work you put in here is likely to actually matter—to the planet as well as your career.
Solar
43%
Wind
25%
Battery
13%
Nuclear
14%
Hydrogen
7%
"Clean"
8%
Geothermal
3%
Fusion
3%
Hydropower
2%
Total Jobs by Energy Type
What does “clean” mean?
We focused only on jobs associated with energy types that generate carbon-free electricity. That includes wind, geothermal, solar, nuclear, hydrogen, hydropower, and fusion. It excludes more ambiguous categories, such as biomass. Most jobs in our dataset specify one or more types of energy that a job candidate would engage with, but about 8% don’t specify any. For example, a nonprofit job might focus on renewable energy policy, a consultant might advise on energy transition, and a tech company might hire someone to help build out its carbon-free power-generation program. Some energy firms posted job descriptions that were simply scant on details. For these roles, we’ve assigned a general “clean” category to their energy type.
Job Types
Marketing and Communications
These messaging strategists craft and boost an organization’s voice on multiple platforms: website, community engagement, internal informational materials, and more.
Technician and Installation
Technicians and installers are closest to the metal. They erect wind turbines, install solar panels on roofs, handle nuclear waste, and man the dams.
Development Engineering and Systems Design
In some ways, these people are at the center of it all. They design and build the systems that render, capture, and transfer energy, from solar farms to fusion labs.
Legal, Policy, and Tax
These employees navigate the waters of governance. They draft sales contracts, conceive of a think tank’s latest policy recommendations on clean energy legislation, and audit a solar company’s books.
IT, Programming, and Software Engineering
Developers, data scientists, network techs, and administrators—these workers do everything from maintaining a company’s cloud architecture to writing the software that a power plant runs on.
Operations
Workers in energy operations ensure that nuclear plants, hydropower dams, and wind farms actually run. Their work spans plant supervision, logistics, procurement, and safety.
Project Management
Energy PMs are involved in everything from site planning for energy projects to charting road maps for new technologies to overseeing the deployment of regional energy programs.
Research and Science
These researchers and scientists don’t just experiment with plasma physics and new battery systems in the lab; they also do things like threat-model the security of nuclear power plants and provide expertise on bat habitats to help with project development.
Sales
Energy sales jobs include direct-to-consumer positions (e.g., solar panel salespeople), regional business development managers for energy storage systems, and account executives for manufacturers and utility companies.
Finance, Markets, Investment, and Trading
A gust of wind is first turned into an electron, and then it's turned into money. These workers analyze markets, secure investments, financialize contracts into derivatives, and more.
Who’s Hiring
While for-profit companies are responsible for about 90% of all jobs listed, that share is not consistent across all energy types. Jobs at for-profit companies are more common in the solar, wind, and battery and energy storage system industries than they are in nuclear and hydropower.
Among the companies that are hiring, just under half are in the primary business of developing and managing clean energy assets, such as solar farms and nuclear plants. The next largest batch of companies seeking clean energy employees are ones that design and build the wind turbines, energy storage systems, and fuel cells that are ultimately integrated into energy projects. About 5% are at legacy firms such as Shell and Baker Hughes—corporations chiefly invested in oil and gas.
Notably, 15% of companies are not primarily in the energy business at all. They’re automakers, tech companies, banks, and insurers.
Then there’s this surprising tidbit: While most job openings are, by far, at for-profit companies, the U.S. Department of Energy—through its national laboratories around the country—represents the single largest hiring body, accounting for 2.8% of all openings.
Types of Companies Hiring
Manufacturing and Industrial
2%
Traditional Energy Companies
4%
Engineering Consulting and Architecture
8%
Cleantech and Equipment
36%
Consulting and Professional Services
2%
Construction and Real Estate
3%
Energy Utility
7%
Clean and Renewable Energy Companies
34%
1% Financial Services
1% Technology and Software
0.37% Transportation and Logistics
0.34% Retail and E-commerce
0.22% Healthcare and Life Sciences
0.05% Agriculture and Food
0.02% Telecommunications
Types of Employers (overall)
Types of Employers (by energy)
Battery
"Clean"
Fusion
Geothermal
Hydrogen
Hydropower
Nuclear
Solar
Wind
company
government entity
nonprofit
university
Wind
96%
1.1%
2.7%
0.6%
Solar
96%
1.8%
0.7%
0.7%
Nuclear
76%
21%
0.7%
1.4%
Hydropower
78%
21%
0.3%
0.6%
Hydrogen
93%
5%
0.9%
2%
Geothermal
92%
6%
2%
0.6%
Fusion
89%
8%
2%
1%
"Clean"
77%
9%
13%
0.8%
Battery
95%
1%
3%
0.7%
Company
90.6%
Government Entity
5.7%
Nonprofit
2.9%
University
0.8%
Intro
Geography
Salary
Who’s Hiring
Geography
Education
Experience
Salary
Education
Back to Top
Experience
If you’re looking for your first job in the clean energy industry, great news: You probably won’t need an energy background at all. There are, of course, exceptions. Project managers are most likely to need
some type of prior exposure to the industry. And while many technician and installation jobs are open to newbies, wind-related ones might want you to have a bit of energy experience under your belt.
Previous Experience Required: Job and Energy Type
Scroll to see all 10 job types
not required
preferred
required
Previous energy experience:
Battery
"Clean"
Fusion
Geothermal
Hydrogen
Hydropower
Nuclear
Solar
Wind
Energy type
16%
55%
29%
93%
6%
N/A*
63%
12%
25%
83%
9%
8%
N/A*
10%
33%
57%
15%
30%
55%
13%
41%
46%
31%
36%
31%
62%
15%
23%
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
14%
11%
75%
29%
44%
27%
72%
38%
36%
27%
37%
33%
31%
56%
29%
14%
N/A*
28%
21%
51%
N/A*
24%
33%
44%
29%
27%
44%
38%
18%
44%
20%
25%
55%
37%
24%
39%
N/A*
44%
18%
38%
36%
28%
36%
N/A*
21%
41%
38%
21%
58%
21%
20%
62%
18%
50%
15%
35%
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
63%
25%
12%
N/A*
10%
50%
41%
17%
41%
41%
26%
31%
43%
N/A*
61%
30%
9%
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
43%
5%
52%
N/A*
49%
27%
24%
52%
31%
17%
N/A*
N/A*
62%
16%
21%
N/A*
N/A*
26%
36%
38%
21%
36%
43%
80%
18%
7%
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
N/A*
23%
4%
73%
N/A*
35%
23%
42%
50%
23%
26%
N/A*
N/A*
56%
27%
18%
N/A*
N/A*
17%
38%
45%
13%
40%
47%
72%
28%
28%
44%
41%
14%
45%
75%
18%
7%
34%
32%
34%
30%
26%
45%
15%
30%
55%
21%
37%
43%
21%
50%
29%
22%
55%
23%
Development Engineering and Systems Design
Finance, Markets, Investment, and Trading
IT, Programming, and Software Engineering
Legal, Policy, and Tax
Marketing and Communications
Operations
Project Management
Research and Science
Sales
Technician and Installation
Methodology
We extracted jobs from the Google Jobs search module monthly from June 21, 2024, to August 21, 2024, yielding a total of 74,717 listings and resulting in 26,624 jobs when duplicates were removed. We spoke with experts in the energy and manufacturing fields to determine how best to categorize jobs, ultimately excluding those that accounted for fewer than 1% of the total listings. (Sorry, human resources and corporate management.) Job categories were assigned with a combination of manual token search and Claude 3.5 Sonnet to an accuracy of 95%, based on our verification.
Energy types were assigned by parsing job titles and descriptions for all energy types mentioned in the listing, since some jobs are assigned to multiple energy categories. Experience, salary, education, and organization type were extracted with Claude 3.5 Sonnet to an accuracy of >99%. Monthly and hourly salaries were standardized to yearly rates by multiplying the rate by 12 for monthly salaries, and by 2,080 for hourly salaries. Organization categories were sourced by clustering Crunchbase categories and company descriptions.
—Additional reporting by Janya Sundar
Salary
All job seekers know that companies can be notoriously cagey about salaries, and clean energy is no different. Less than half of the jobs listed provided any information about how much employees could expect to make. But the salaries that do emerge are instructive.
For example, while the wind industry offers relatively few sales jobs, those openings tend to be for higher-paid, senior-level business development managers who can handle large contracts with power companies. The lower pay for geothermal salespeople stems from the sector’s more business-to-consumer approach, selling heat pumps directly to homeowners. Technicians in the nuclear industry typically require more experience and education than those deployed to maintain wind turbines or install home solar panels—and thus command higher salaries. And in our catch-all “clean” category, legal, policy, and tax workers are likely to be paid less because a large number of the jobs—34%—are with nonprofits.
Battery
"Clean"
Fusion
Geothermal
Hydrogen
Hydropower
Nuclear
Solar
Wind
$40K
$80K
$100K
$120K
$140K
$160K
$180K
$200K
$62K
$61K
$82K
$71K
$56K
$66K
$87K
$58K
$57K
Technician and Installation
$118K
$111K
$90K
$115K
$112K
$119K
$141K
Sales
$97K
$90K
$125K
$95K
$97K
$119K
$97K
$97K
Research and Science
$135K
$115K
$125K
$139K
$150K
$128K
$134K
Project Management
$119K
$112K
$108K
$125K
$101K
$115K
Operations
$68K
$83K
$90K
Marketing and Communications
$139K
$97K
$139K
$139K
$124K
$139K
$139K
Legal, Policy, and Tax
$122K
$130K
$114K
$130K
$125K
$108K
IT, Programming, and Software Engineering
$120K
$101K
$119K
$125K
$125K
Finance, Markets, Investment, and Trading
$120K
$107K
$145K
$125K
$132K
$120K
$124K
$123K
$136K
Development Engineering and Systems Design
Development Engineering and Systems Design
Finance, Markets, Investment, and Trading
IT, Programming, and Software Engineering
Legal, Policy, and Tax
Marketing and Communications
Operations
Project Management
Research and Science
Sales
Technician and Installation
Top 10 states
HI
TX
FL
OK
LA
AL
GA
SC
AZ
NM
KS
AR
MS
TN
NC
CA
UT
CO
NE
MO
KY
WV
VA
MD
OR
NV
WY
SD
IA
IL
IN
OH
PA
NJ
DE
WA
ID
MT
ND
MN
WI
MI
NY
CT
RI
MA
NH
VT
ME
AK
HI
OK
KS
NE
WY
SD
IA
IN
MT
ND
FL
LA
AZ
UT
MO
NV
NJ
CT
RI
NH
NM
TN
CO
WV
VA
SD
WA
ID
AK
(5% Remote)
GA
VA
OR
DE
ID
MN
NY
VT
AK
(21% Remote)
TX
LA
AL
NM
AR
WV
ND
MN
RI
MA
MS
TN
NJ
WA
WI
NY
MA
VT
AK
(3% Remote)
CA
NE
MD
OR
NV
WY
SD
OH
WI
(4% Remote)
KY
OR
NJ
WA
CT
MA
VT
ME
AK
(3% Remote)
TX
NC
CO
KY
VA
MD
NY
MA
VT
(6% Remote)
GA
SC
WV
VA
PA
DE
WA
MI
MA
VT
Technician and Installation
Sales
Research and Science
Project Management
Operations
Marketing and Communications
Legal, Policy, and Tax
IT, Programming, and Software Engineering
Finance, Markets, Investment, and Trading
Development Engineering and Systems Design
Where the energy job types are by state
Click on each job type to see the top 10 states with the highest density
Geography
Locations with the highest concentration of that job type among all clean energy jobs (with "remote" counting as a state)
44%
6%
6%
6%
3%
10%
22%
24%
51%
64%
The clean energy industry has substantially shifted to remote work; “remote” is among the top locations listed for every job type we studied. As far as actual locations go, California, New York, Massachusetts, and Colorado have the highest number of clean energy jobs overall, with Texas—a state built atop an ocean of oil—close behind.
But when you look closer at how these jobs are concentrated across the country, the picture becomes more diverse. Tennessee, for example, has the highest
total proportion of research and science positions, largely because it’s the home of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The majority of clean energy jobs in Arizona are in sales, due to the big market for home solar panels. And Delaware, a tiny state without many nuclear labs or wind farms, has the highest concentration of jobs in engineering, largely because of Sargent & Lundy, an engineering and systems design firm for power companies that’s located there.
*N/A = insufficient listings
*Hydropower not included due to insufficient data
*Totals may equal more or less than 100% due to rounding and listings requiring a minimum of HS diploma, GED, or associate's degree
*N/A = insufficient listings
*Totals may not add up to 100% due to rounding
*Ranges depict 25th to 75th salary percentiles *Gaps indicate insufficient listings
$60K
*Totals may not add up to 100% due to rounding
GRAPHICS BY
MING HSUAN LEE
Illustrations BY Michael Brandon Myers
1%
5%
4%
67%
28%
5%