New report shows how universities can support green skills

Policymakers and higher education leaders should start from the position that every job can potentially be greened, that green skills are relevant to all jobs and all disciplines.

Those are among the recommendations of a major new report published today by the Quality Assurance Agency.

The report also recommends that:

• careers and employability specialists should recognise how supporting place-based future green economic activity in their localities can generate vehicles for curriculum integration and student green skill development, and should signal green skills learning in the curriculum to help students build their own career narratives around green skills and make them visible to employers;
• curriculum designers should conduct curriculum mapping of green skills, and should work closely with students on an integrated and scaffolded approach to technical, transferable and transformative skill development through processes of curriculum review and design;
• student unions should promote the importance of green skills, and should engage with sector-level and institutional policies around green skills, highlighting the national shortfall of green skills as a structural issue.

The report is the product of a QAA-funded Collaborative Enhancement Project on Green Skills for Green Jobs led by Oxford Brookes University's Dr Jonathan Louw and Dr Karen Cripps, in partnership with colleagues from Aston University, De Montfort University, the University of Exeter, Manchester Metropolitan University and Students Organising for Sustainability UK.

The report is based on an extensive review of the extant literature and the findings a series of workshops and of fifteen case studies charting initiatives run at 11 providers: Aston University, De Montfort University, the University of Exeter, Glasgow School of Art, King's College London, the University of Leicester, Manchester Metropolitan University, the Open University, the University of Southampton, the University of Westminster and the University of York.

Staged between November 2025 and April 2026, the series of seven workshops involved a total of 125 participants across the lead and partner institutions – 54 students, 44 staff members and 27 representatives of external industry employers – and explored how taught provision can support the development of technical, transferable and transformative skills.

One employer who participated in the research said: "You have to be resilient. You have to be proactive, you have to keep positive and you have to [have] negotiation skills... and that's not going to be very easy."

Another participant pointed out that the accelerating pace of technological and policy disruption means that "flexibility and adaptability are key now when it comes to understanding that jobs might change over time" – alongside the psychological flexibility needed to navigate climate anxiety and to bear the emotional weight tied to environmental crisis awareness.

Participants agreed that graduates need to be able to demonstrate critical thinking skills which (as one participant put it) allow you to "think past what you're taught and think how does it apply … how does the impact of what you're learning apply in the real world".

Report co-author Dr Jonathan Louw (Associate Professor of Management Education in Oxford Brookes Business School) said: "The green transition calls for skills that straddle climate and related environmental concerns, including those related to nature, water, and biodiversity, while promoting equity and inclusivity in addressing structural inequalities. By working with employers and policymakers, and through collaboration between students and staff, higher education clearly has a vital role to play in this transition, a transition which is crucial for the long-term future of our world."

The full report, including its complete findings and full set of 43 recommendations, along with its collection of related case studies, is available on the QAA website.