A deepening green skills crisis in the Capital has prompted The City of London Corporation to establish a top-level industry taskforce to map and tackle a serious gap.

The new Skills for a Sustainable Skyline Taskforce involves contractors like Mace and Willmott Dixon as well as building services trade body BESA, sitting alongside clients and consultants.

It has been set up for three years after a poll of 100 industry professionals revealed around 90% feared a growing green skills gap.

The taskforce will support the aims of the City Corporation’s radical Climate Action Strategy which commits to net-zero carbon emissions across the City Corporation’s operations by 2027, and to support the achievement of net zero for the Square Mile by 2040.

Chair of the Skills for a Sustainable Skylines Taskforce and Deputy Chair of the City Corporation’s Policy and Resource Committee, Chris Hayward, said:“Central London urgently needs a larger skilled workforce to decarbonise its commercial buildings and this taskforce will lead the way in finding solutions to fill this skills gap.

“We must work at pace to attract new talent as well as upskill and reskill the existing workforce as we look to meet our ambitious climate action goals.

“The areas which we have identified as having the greatest scope for improvement are the full development lifecycle, including design, retrofit, construction and maintenance.”