The UK energy sector has a people problem. Getting the right people in is only half of it.
The other half is keeping them. And that is a leadership question.
The highest turnover rate in the sector sits in the 26 to 35 age group. It has done every year since 2021. These are the people who should be stepping into leadership roles. They are leaving instead. And the sector does not yet have a clear answer for why.
Source: Energy & Utility Skills, Inclusion Measurement Framework 2024
“This is not simply a recruitment challenge. It is a structural deficiency. We are trying to build 2030s infrastructure with 2010s talent pipelines.”
Newman Stewart, International Energy Week, February 2026
The data is uncomfortable
Only 22% of energy sector workers consider the sector to be inclusive. The worst result since tracking began. 49% have experienced or witnessed discrimination in the past five years. More than double the figure from the year before.
Source: Pride in Energy Annual Survey 2024 and 2025
| 22% consider the sector inclusive | 49% witnessed discrimination | 20% no senior role models |
These are not diversity statistics. They are retention statistics.
People leave workplaces where the culture is not managed. Where leadership does not model anything worth following. Recruiting into that environment is expensive. Fixing it is the point.
Staff turnover costs UK businesses an average of £30,614 per employee. That is not just the recruitment fee. It includes lost productivity, management time, onboarding, and the performance gap while a replacement reaches competence. In a sector with critical skills, high time-to-fill, and experienced candidates in short supply, that figure is a floor, not a ceiling.
Source: Oxford Economics and Unum, cited by Energy Institute
The problem has a specific address
It sits in middle management. This is the layer that sets the day-to-day tone. Who gets hired. How teams are run. What behaviour gets tolerated. In large parts of the energy sector, this layer has been promoted for technical competence and left entirely undeveloped as leaders.
“You get those in middle management that don’t necessarily get it. And these are the people that are hiring new people.”
Rodney Williams, Business Development Manager, National Grid
And it is costing them at the top too. Women make up 34% of middle management in UK energy. They hold 8% of CEO positions. The pipeline exists. The pathway does not. That is a leadership development failure, not a recruitment one.
Source: POWERful Women, State of the Nation 2025
Knowledge is walking out the door
80% of engineering employers say they share knowledge effectively between colleagues. Only 57% say they do so effectively with retiring staff.
That is not a documentation problem. Knowledge transfer requires psychological safety, trust, and leaders who see developing others as part of their role. Those conditions are not reliably in place. The people who know how things work are leaving. The mechanisms to retain that knowledge are not there.
Source: IET, Engineering and Technology Skills Stats 2025
People don’t leave jobs. They leave leaders.
The IMPACT Leadership Programme was built for exactly this population. Mid-level and senior leaders who carry disproportionate cultural influence and have been systematically underdeveloped. Leaders who, with the right development, become the reason people stay.
NDA also delivers structured SLT coaching and senior facilitation for organisations navigating exactly this kind of transition. And from September 2026, with the Level 3 Team Leader apprenticeship defunded, the gap in the middle is only going to grow.
If you’re ready to approach this differently, then let’s chat!