Solar recruitment · United Kingdom
Solar recruitment agency for the UK
Net Zero Evolution is a solar recruitment agency for the UK. We recruit construction and project managers, electrical and grid engineers, O&M technicians and commercial leaders for developers, EPCs, installers and asset owners. The first thing worth saying is that there is no single UK solar market. Ground mount, commercial rooftop and domestic install pay differently, hire differently and almost never trade people with each other.
The second is that the market is not where the commentary says it is. The money and the headlines have moved to asset management, co-location and repowering. The hiring, right now, has not.
Clients we have helped
Solar is not one market
The solar markets we recruit for in the UK
Ground mount, commercial rooftop, domestic and the asset management layer above all three hire from separate pools. Whichever one you sit in, the hiring problem next door is not your hiring problem.
- Utility-scale ground mount
- You are competing for planning, grid and construction people against wind and storage, not against other solar developers. The scarce person understands the connection process rather than the panel.
- Commercial and industrial rooftop
- The smallest talent pool of the three and the one nobody writes a career plan around. Your people usually arrive from either the domestic side or from building services, and each arrives missing a different half of the job.
- Domestic install
- Your constraint is rarely electricians in the abstract. It is electricians who will work at height on a roof, hold the right certification, and stay once the busy season ends.
- Asset management and O&M
- Every time a portfolio changes hands somebody has to stand up a team to run it, usually inside weeks of completion. The people who have done that before are a small group and they are all already employed.
- Design and engineering consultancy
- The specialist design engineers sit in a handful of consultancies rather than with developers, which is why the same role appears in five cities at once when one of them needs another.
How we work here
How we recruit for solar in the UK
Recruitment fundamentals travel. Markets do not. The UK puts a band on the face of an advert far more often than anywhere else we work, in solar as much as in storage and charging, and in solar that transparency is what exposes how far apart the three segments really are. A utility-scale development lead and a domestic site manager can be sixty thousand pounds apart while both being advertised as solar. We have been hiring across all three here for years, from installation electricians and site managers through design and construction to development and portfolio leadership.
Before you brief anyone
Which solar market are you actually in?
Solar is three labour markets wearing one word, and they barely trade with each other. Utility-scale ground mount, commercial rooftop, and domestic install pay differently, hire differently and attract completely different people.
A developer and a domestic installer both say they are hiring in solar. One is competing for planning, grid and asset management people against wind and storage. The other is competing for electricians against every trade in the country.
The mistake that costs the most is briefing across the line. A utility developer who interviews domestic installers because the CV says solar, or an installer who benchmarks pay against utility-scale bands and concludes nobody will move for the money.
People do cross, but one step at a time. Domestic into commercial, commercial into ground mount, each step bought with new qualifications and time on site. Nobody moves from a domestic install team onto a grid-scale programme because the CV says solar.
Worth settling before anyone is approached: which of the three you are in, whether the role genuinely crosses between them, and what you are offering somebody who would have to cross.
Why hiring here is different from anywhere else
Why solar hiring in the UK is different
The commentary has moved on. The hiring has not.
Where the pressure is right now
The hardest solar roles to fill in the UK right now
Technical managers, installation managers and delivery leadership. The roles we are asked for most often, and short in every segment at once. They stay short for a reason that does not fix itself: the people who can do the job climb a ladder rather than switch tracks. Somebody good on domestic can move into commercial, and from commercial into ground mount, but each step needs new qualifications and time on site. A grid-scale business cannot solve the problem by hiring from the domestic pool, however many CVs say solar.
EPC, construction and site management. The largest single block of live roles and the one that has to absorb the pipeline Allocation Round 7 just financed. Competing here means competing with every other developer trying to build in the same eighteen months.
Grid and connections specialists. Consent is no longer the gate, the queue is. The people who can navigate Gate 2 offers, capacity thresholds and the risk of being removed from the queue are a much narrower group than project developers, and utility-scale employers cannot get enough of them.
Specialist design and electrical engineering. One consultancy is currently offering the same principal solar electrical engineer role in six UK cities, in the advert’s own words. When a business will take the person wherever they happen to live, it has stopped expecting to find them.
Asset management after a transaction. It arrives as a spike rather than a trend, inside weeks of a portfolio completing, and the people who have stood up an O&M and asset management function before are a small group who are all currently employed.
Anything domestic priced against utility-scale. The two segments can sit sixty thousand pounds apart on similar sounding titles. If a domestic role has been open a long time, the band is usually being judged against the wrong market.
Based on live vacancy activity across the UK solar market. Reviewed 14 September 2026, updated monthly.
Delivery
Work we have done in UK solar
Two recent UK solar engagements.
- A residential solar installer outgrowing its centre
- A residential solar and heat pump installer was opening regional delivery teams faster than its central functions could carry them. We worked both halves in parallel: operations, supply chain, quality, compliance and technical management at the centre, and general managers, installation managers, electricians, roofers and heating engineers in the regions. Talent right through the business now, and a group that is still scaling with us alongside it.
- Operations and maintenance for a commercial solar business
- A commercial solar business needed O&M electricians and site engineering in regions where its own network was thin. Those are the roles that decide whether an asset performs after handover, and they are hired against the trades market rather than against other solar companies.
Salary Intelligence
What people are actually paid
- Solar project manager
- Location UK Band £55,000 to £65,000 Basis Annual base salary
- Solar PV electrician
- Location UK Band £40,000 to £60,000 Basis Annual base salary
Market Intelligence
The market right now
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10 February 2026
A record auction for solarAllocation Round 7a awarded 4.9GW of solar PV, by export capacity, at a strike price of £65.23 per MWh, the largest capacity awarded to solar PV in the UK since the Contracts for Difference scheme began.
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24 March 2026
Rooftop solar on new homes, from 2028The Future Homes Standard, published on 24 March 2026, means new homes in England built from 2028 will be fitted with rooftop solar, with exemptions where solar is not suitable.
Source: Future Homes Standard launched with solar mandate , Solar panels to be compulsory on all new homes in England .
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April 2025 and 2 October 2026
The queue decides, not the plannersOfgem approved NESO’s TMO4+ connections reform on 15 April 2025, expected to produce a confirmed Gate 2 queue of around 296GW including built capacity. Projects that miss their milestones can be removed from the queue. On 2 October 2026 Ofgem agreed a second extension for NESO to issue the remaining Gate 2 Phase 1 offers, moving the deadline from 30 September to 31 October 2026.
Source: TMO4+ connection reform proposals approved , Ofgem agreement on the Gate 2 to Whole Queue timetable .
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31 July 2026
Portfolios keep changing handsDrax completed a £548 million acquisition of solar and wind assets with effect from 31 July 2026, adding 0.9GW of operating and under-construction capacity and a 2.9GW gross development pipeline.
Source: Drax completes £548 million acquisition .
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13 April 2026
Thinning margin in the domestic tradeGivEnergy, a battery and inverter supplier to the domestic solar trade, entered administration on 9 April 2026, owing unsecured creditors more than £17 million.
Source: GivEnergy enters administration .
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6 October 2026
The workforce is the stated constraintSkills England projects employment in 31 clean energy priority occupations growing by 63,000, or 71%, between 2025 and 2030, and estimates replacement demand of about 36,000 over 2026 to 2035. 14% of those occupations are in critical demand.
Market intelligence reviewed 27 October 2026.
TalentPilot
We would rather you needed us less
Most agencies are built so that you call them again. The model only works while hiring stays hard for you, which means nobody selling it has much reason to make it easier.
We took the opposite bet, and not only out of principle. A business that hires well on its own stays a client for years and brings us the roles that are genuinely difficult. A business that depends on an agency resents every invoice and leaves the first time somebody undercuts us. The second kind of relationship is worth less and lasts less long.
So we built TalentPilot. Twenty-one tools across planning, attracting, hiring and keeping people: map the roles before they become urgent, see where the people actually are, write the advert properly, run a consistent interview, and know which of your new starters is at risk before they resign.
And one thing almost nobody has. Every week, the real reasons candidates said no. Not a summary. The actual objections: the money, the location, the counter-offer, the part of the role that put them off. Most businesses never find out, which is why they keep making the same hire the same way.
Everything on this page is one market on one date. Our clients see their own, continuously.
What is left for us is the work that genuinely needs a search. That is the part we are good at, and the part worth paying for.
See how TalentPilot worksHow a search runs
You see it as we see it
- Before we start
- The brief and the target companies are agreed in writing. You know which businesses we are approaching and which we are not, before anyone is contacted.
- Every week
- The outreach, the response levels, where each person sits in the process, and the reasons anyone said no. The money, the location, the counter-offer, the part of the role that put them off.
- When it stalls
- You hear it from us. A search that has gone quiet is a conversation about the brief, not a report we delay until you ask.
What happens when you get in touch
A first call is a conversation about your hiring plan. Half an hour, with the consultant who runs this market for us.
We will tell you what we are seeing in your part of it: where the difficulty sits, which roles are moving and what people are actually being paid. You get that whether you decide to work with us or not.
If there is something we can help with, we will say what it would take and roughly how long. If there isn't, we will say so and point you at whoever is better placed.
No slide deck, no pitch, and nobody will chase you afterwards.
If you work in this market
What we are seeing from the other side
The same searches, read from the candidate side.
- Technical and installation managers
- The most asked-for people in UK solar and short in every segment. If you run installs on domestic and want the commercial side, the qualifications are the gate rather than the experience, and plenty of employers will fund them for the right person rather than keep waiting.
- Grid and connections
- The scarcest thing you can know in UK solar right now. If you have worked a connection application through to a firm date, you are worth more than your title suggests and probably more than your current employer has noticed.
- Construction and EPC
- The largest volume of live roles, and the most competitive bidding. Bands are visible on most adverts, which means you can benchmark yourself accurately before you take a call.
- Domestic installers
- Margin is thin, so look past the headline rate at who owns the install capacity and who is reselling somebody else’s hardware.
- Where it leads
- Site management into construction management, construction into development, and O&M into asset management, which is where the money and the scarcity are both moving. Crossing between the segments works one step at a time, domestic into commercial and commercial into ground mount, and each step is bought with qualifications rather than years.
Questions
Clear answers for the next step.
Which recruitment agency specialises in solar hiring in the UK?
Net Zero Evolution. We recruit only in the decarbonisation of transport and energy, and solar is one of our core sectors, across ground mount, commercial rooftop and domestic installation. We work on a fixed fee of 8 to 12%, agreed before we start.
What solar roles do you recruit for in the UK?
Development and planning, grid and connections, EPC and construction management, design and electrical engineering, O&M and asset management, and installation and site management on the commercial and domestic side. We work all three segments rather than one.
Is UK solar hiring for new build or for operations?
New build. The commentary has moved to asset management, co-location and repowering, and the hiring has not followed yet. Asset management hiring is real but it arrives as a spike after a portfolio transacts rather than as a steady trend.
Why is grid experience so hard to hire in solar?
Because planning consent stopped being the constraint and the connections queue became it. Navigating Gate 2 offers and capacity thresholds is a narrower skill than project development, it is newer than the people who have it, and wind and storage are bidding for exactly the same individuals.
Do utility-scale and domestic solar share the same candidates?
Very rarely, and treating them as one market is the most expensive mistake in UK solar hiring. The pay gap between them can reach sixty thousand pounds on similar sounding titles, and the skills only overlap at the edges.
What will the Future Homes Standard do to solar hiring?
It means new homes in England built from 2028 will be fitted with rooftop solar, with exemptions where solar is not suitable, and housebuilders will be contracting installers well before that. Expect domestic install and new build partnership roles to tighten ahead of the deadline rather than at it.