How the green economy is impacting the roles of engineers and technicians

Cross-sector and cross-functional green skills such as 'environmental sustainability management' are being highly sought after by employers.

In SkillsFuture Singapore's Q1 edition of Jobs-Skills Quarterly Insights, the focus is on engineers and technicians needing to pick up a bundle of Industry 4.0, green, and digital skills to support job roles that are emerging and in demand. Engineering will also become more important as it responds to global climate and sustainability challenges and goals under the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Published in collaboration with the Institution of Engineers, Singapore (IES), the report is launched in conjunction with the IES Green Plan, which outlines engineering-centric action plans from 2023 to 2030 in support of the Singapore Green Plan 2030. 

In particular, the report highlights two key trends for the engineering workforce in Singapore:

Trend one: Cross-sector and cross-functional green skills are highly sought after by employers 

These skills include:

• energy management and audit,
• sustainable engineering,
• environmental sustainability management,
• environmental management system framework development and implementation, and
• renewables energy system management and integration. 

These skills are in high demand and transferable across multiple engineering job roles.

Breaking it down specifically, skills such as energy management and audit, sustainable engineering, and environment sustainability management support the mitigation and management of scope one emissions that are related to the “direct” emissions of a company caused by operating the things that it owns or controls.

Energy management and audit refers to performing energy audits to optimise the energy performance of energy consuming systems and manage energy consumption, while sustainable engineering refers to designing, constructing and operating engineering systems and assets to optimise energy management and enhance environmental performance. Environment sustainability management means integrating environmental sustainability through the development, implementation and review of sustainability strategies and programmes against industry best practices. 

At the same time skills such as renewables energy system management and integration and energy management and audit also support the control of scope two emissions, which are “indirect” emissions created by the production of the energy that a company buys. Finally, skills in environmental sustainability management and environmental management system framework development and implementation, amongst others, can help mitigate scope three emissions across a company’s upstream and downstream value chain.

Renewable energy system management and integration analyses impact of renewable energy system integration on energy grid in steady state and during dynamic operation. Energy management and audit means performing energy audits to optimise the energy performance of energy consuming systems and manage energy consumption

Trend two: Changing job content of existing engineering and technician roles, as well as the emergence of new green job roles.

Engineering job roles that most require the above green skills include both:

• existing engineering roles (which are greening with more work functions and key tasks focusing on environmental compliance, energy management, and climate mitigation), as well as,
• new job roles (that require engineers to be knowledgeable in emerging low carbon and clean technologies and possess digital skills such as internet of things (IoT) application, programming and coding, and big data analytics).

Between 2018 and 2021, these engineering roles with the highest hiring demand are energy engineer, solar PV project development engineer, health, safety and environment (HSE) manager, power technician, and facilities engineer.

In terms of the greening of existing engineering jobs, roles with greening job content include environment, health and safety (EHS) manager and facilities engineer. Traditionally, an EHS manager assesses work environment for work hazards caused by environment or work processes. However, in today’s context, their work also encompasses the protection and sustainability of the physical work environment and work processes as well as compliance to new regulations related to environmental sustainability.

In tandem, new/emerging green job roles, such as roles in solar PV development and deployment and energy sustainability engineering, are also growing. Besides functional domain skills such as in engineering maintenance and operations, these roles require engineers to be knowledgeable in emerging clean technologies, managing environmental sustainability, as well as possess skills such as IoT applications, programming and coding, and big data analytics.

Using the role of a battery energy storage systems (BESS) solar engineer as an example, those in this role are also required to pick up skills in clean energy systems such as battery systems design management, smart grid implementation and integration, and digital skills

Lead image / Jobs-Skills Quarterly Insights