The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) is aware that most energy sector workers will retire in the next 15 years so will need to be replaced, according to a written House of Lords answer by Baroness Wilcox.

Responding to Lord Willis of Knaresborough’s question about what steps the Government is taking to ensure there are enough graduate engineers to meet a surge in demand for renewable and other energy, Baroness Wilcox outlined the support currently available.

This support included the Higher Education Funding Council for England's strategically important and vulnerable subjects programme, STEM Ambassadors scheme, national skills academies for nuclear and for power and other initiatives to support science, technology and engineering at the higher education level.

“The coalition agrees that scientific and technical skills will be vital for the nation's economic prosperity,” said Baroness Wilcox.

House of Lords Written Answers and Statements, 2 August