Green Skills in Heritage Task Group

This task group (December 2023 – December 2024) focussed on skills gaps in the heritage sector to properly deliver on environmental sustainability.

The HEF Green Skills in Heritage Task Group brought together organisations from across the heritage sector and affiliate sectors to connect heritage jobs/careers to the green jobs market. It was set up to deliver an action of the Heritage Sector Resilience Plan.

The aims of the group were:

To understand the breadth of green skills needed in the heritage sector to progress the work towards environmental sustainability, and ensure that the sector is able to harness the potential of funding streams related to environmental sustainability for the benefit of the historic environment;
To coordinate with other working groups to gather evidence on the green skills needed in the heritage sector and assess gaps,
To explore how to stimulate demand of these specific skills.

The group also liaised with other groups working on related topics.

Task Group members mapped the green skills/jobs needed to support work around sustainability in the historic environment sector; you can find the map in the form of a Padlet board below. We sourced information from published reports, and from insights from different organisations.

The mapping highlighted an unclear definition of ‘green skills’ in the sector, which hinders collaborative evidence collection. Skills gaps are well mapped in the construction sector, thanks to a series of research reports commissioned by Historic England, but data is largely missing for the rest of the historic environment sector.

The group co-organised with English Heritage a pilot ‘Regional Skills Symposium’ in Norfolk (26 September 2024), with a workshop devoted to green skills. The symposium included representatives from the heritage sector, the education sector, the construction sector, and local authorities. Organisers noted a real momentum behind the skill gaps, despite the challenges to connect these sectors.

The group commissioned Kerbside Collective to research on investments in the sector to get to net zero. The resulting report also illustrates some of the related evidence gaps and policy challenges, highlighting best practices, and how collaborative efforts are key to develop a more resilient and sustainable sector. The report can be read here.

Finally, the group organised the roundtable ‘Green Skills in Heritage: Connecting Sectors, Overcoming Challenges’ (12 November 2024) with representatives from the heritage sector and from trade bodies of affiliate sectors. A summary of the findings from the roundtable can be found here.