Future skills for securing critical energy infrastructure

As the UK accelerates its transition to a net-zero energy system, ensuring the security and resilience of critical national infrastructure (CNI) is becoming just as important as clean energy generation. The increasing digitalisation of energy systems, combined with the growing sophistication of cyber threats, means that future energy networks must not only be low-carbon, but also secure-by-design.

This report sets out the findings of a Workforce Foresighting cycle focused on securing “Tomorrow’s Energy” by enabling sovereign digital security in critical national infrastructure. The study was led by Digital Catapult, sponsored by Northern Power Grid, and delivered in collaboration with the Workforce Foresighting Hub, an Innovate UK initiative.

Why workforce foresighting matters

Workforce foresighting is a systemic approach that helps industry, educators, and policymakers anticipate how emerging technologies and risks will shape future workforce demand. By identifying future capability requirements early, it enables education and training systems to adapt in time—moving skills development from a reactive to a proactive footing.

In this study, foresighting has been applied to one of the UK’s most critical challenges: ensuring that energy systems remain secure and resilient as they become increasingly digital, interconnected, and reliant on technologies such as AI and cloud computing.

Strategic context

Energy and cyber security are strategically critical sectors for the UK economy, underpinning both national resilience and the transition to net zero. Together, the sectors employ approximately 226,000 people, reflecting their scale and importance to economic growth and infrastructure stability.

Both sectors are experiencing rapid transformation. The growing use of AI, cloud computing, and connected operational technologies is reshaping how energy systems are designed and operated, while also increasing exposure to cyber threats. Recent data shows that a significant proportion of organisations continue to experience security breaches, highlighting the urgency of strengthening capability across the workforce.

In response, the study focused on the skills needed to support secure, sovereign, and resilient energy systems, particularly in the context of hybrid IT/OT environments and increasingly complex supply chains.

Implications for the workforce

The findings highlight a fundamental shift in workforce requirements, driven by the convergence of emerging technologies, rising cyber risk, and the need to ensure resilience and regulatory compliance across increasingly complex energy systems. This is not a marginal change, but a transformation at scale, reflected in the identification of 107 future capabilities and 11 occupational profiles across the supply chain.

At the heart of this shift is a move away from creating entirely new roles, towards the evolution of existing roles. Engineers, digital specialists and operational leaders will need to develop new capabilities in cyber security, data and system integration, fundamentally reshaping how current roles are defined and performed.

This transformation is underpinned by a set of critical capability themes, including secure system architectures, SCADA digitalisation, advanced cryptography, AI-enabled threat detection and resilient supply chain management. Together, these signal a shift towards integrated, lifecycle-based system thinking, where security, design, operation and governance must be considered as a single, connected system rather than in isolation.

As a result, the workforce of the future will increasingly require interdisciplinary expertise, combining deep technical knowledge with capabilities in governance, risk and regulatory compliance. This is reinforced by the growing convergence of IT, operational technology and cyber security, with roles expected to operate across traditional boundaries as digital and physical systems become more tightly integrated.

A number of existing roles will sit at the centre of this transition, particularly those in engineering, architecture and systems integration. These roles will act as key enablers of secure, scalable and resilient energy systems, evolving to incorporate capabilities such as hybrid SCADA-cloud architectures, AI monitoring and secure-by-design engineering.

However, a critical constraint to progress is the persistent gap between capability demand and current skills provision. A significant proportion of required capabilities are not reflected in existing education and training standards, highlighting the pace of technological change and the lag in skills system response.

This points to broader structural challenges within education and training systems, including the need to integrate emerging technologies into existing programmes, develop flexible and modular reskilling pathways, embed applied learning linked to real-world use cases, and strengthen collaboration between industry, educators and regulators.

Taken together, it shows that workforce capability is now a critical enabler of energy system security and resilience, not a downstream consideration. Without rapid and coordinated action to evolve existing roles, build interdisciplinary capabilities, and modernise education and training provision, the pace of technology adoption will outstrip the workforce’s ability to implement it safely and effectively. This creates a tangible risk that investment in digitalised, low carbon energy infrastructure will be constrained—not by technology, but by skills—ultimately slowing progress towards a secure, sovereign and net-zero energy system.

Next steps

The report highlights the need for coordinated action across industry, education, and policy to address these challenges.

Recommended actions include strengthening cross-sector collaboration, updating existing training provision, expanding CPD opportunities, and aligning workforce development with regulatory and technological change.

More broadly, the study highlights the importance of treating workforce development as a core enabler of secure, sovereign energy systems, rather than a downstream activity.

By aligning capability development with technology adoption, the UK can reduce a critical risk to energy system resilience—and ensure that its workforce is equipped to secure and sustain the transition to a net-zero future.