“Deeper and more continuous collaboration between academia and industry essential for Skilling”, Kushagra Nandan, LNK Energy
Q1. How do you see the outlook for jobs in the renewable energy Sector, and your own firm’s plans in particular?
The outlook for jobs in the renewable energy sector remains structurally strong. Recent industry estimates indicate that India’s renewable energy sector already supports over 1.3 million jobs and could generate up to 3 million jobs by 2030, reflecting the scale of deployment underway. This momentum is being reinforced by strong policy support across the value chain, particularly the push for domestic manufacturing, localisation of supply chains, and visible multi-year demand through utility-scale tenders and distributed solar programmes.
India’s transition is now being driven not only by capacity addition, but by manufacturing scale-up, grid integration, storage, and the build-out of supporting infrastructure. This is expanding employment across engineering, project execution, manufacturing, operations, and allied services. As projects become more integrated and technology-intensive, demand is rising for skilled professionals who can deliver complex projects reliably and efficiently at scale
This trajectory is directly shaping how we scale our organisation and build our teams. As we build an integrated energy platform spanning manufacturing, renewable power generation, and emerging clean technologies, we are creating multidisciplinary teams with strong execution and technology capabilities. Over the next few years, we plan to create close to 4,000 jobs, including around 500 roles this year, alongside sustained investments in training, safety, and leadership development.
Overall, renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure together will remain among the most important engines of job creation in the coming decade, and we intend to scale responsibly with the sector.
Q2. What are the skills most in demand? What are the skillsets that are most scarce?
Across manufacturing, EPC and development, demand remains strong for core engineering and execution capabilities, with increasing emphasis on reliability and performance optimisation as asset portfolios scale.
In manufacturing, there is strong demand for professionals with hands-on experience in advanced cell and module technologies, automation, yield optimisation and large-scale process control. In EPC and development, talent that combines execution excellence with a deep understanding of grid integration, power evacuation, regulatory frameworks and commercial risk continues to be in short supply.
Furthermore, hybrid projects combining solar, wind, and storage are becoming more common, and emerging segments such as green hydrogen are expected to gather momentum. These areas will require multidisciplinary talent beyond traditional solar skill sets.
A key gap also exists in leadership talent with proven experience in scaling industrial and infrastructure platforms, as renewable energy businesses evolve into long-term asset owners. In parallel, demand is rising for digital and analytics capabilities across predictive maintenance, performance optimisation, forecasting and energy management systems.
Q3. How do salaries and growth compare to other sectors?
As the sector has scaled, salary benchmarks have largely normalised. Where renewables stand out is in growth velocity and responsibility. Professionals often take on larger roles earlier in their careers, work across the full lifecycle from development to operations, and gain exposure to scale much faster than in more mature sectors. Skills developed in renewables are transferable across power, infrastructure, manufacturing and climate-tech, which gives professionals long-term optionality even as technologies evolve.
Q4. What are the lateral sectors that work well for renewables for hiring from?
Renewable energy sits at the intersection of manufacturing, infrastructure, technology and finance, which means some of the most effective talent for the sector often comes from adjacent industries that have already operated at scale.
From a manufacturing perspective, sectors such as electronics, automotive and heavy engineering are especially relevant. They bring deep strengths in process excellence, quality systems, automation, yield optimisation and supply-chain management, capabilities that are critical as India builds large-scale domestic manufacturing capacity across solar and energy storage.
Power and utilities continue to be a strong talent source, particularly for roles linked to grid operations, asset management and regulatory frameworks, while infrastructure and EPC-heavy sectors contribute execution discipline, safety systems and large-project management capabilities.
Financial services and infrastructure finance also play a growing role, especially in commercial, investment, risk and M&A functions, as renewable platforms mature into asset-heavy, yield-oriented businesses.
Overall, it is this cross-pollination of industrial, manufacturing and technology expertise that is enabling renewable energy to scale faster, more efficiently and more sustainably.
Q5. Is academia prepared to handle demand for the skill sets and numbers required by Re firms across manufacturing, EPC and developers?
India’s engineering and management institutions provide a strong foundational base, which is critical. However, the sector is increasingly demanding highly applied and fast-evolving skill sets, ranging from advanced manufacturing processes and automation to project execution, regulatory understanding and long-term asset optimisation. I feel that currently academia is not yet fully equipped to meet the scale and pace of talent required by the renewable energy sector.
That said, the gap is narrowing. We are seeing more specialised curricula, industry-led training programmes, internships and collaborative research initiatives emerge across institutions.
The industry continues to play a central role in translating academic talent into renewable-ready professionals through structured graduate programmes, apprenticeships and on-the-job training.
Going forward, deeper and more continuous collaboration between academia and industry will be essential, not only to improve skill quality, but also to build the scale of talent required to support the sector’s long-term growth.
