Workers with green skills are gaining a significant edge in the job market, as companies seek talent to support climate and energy transitions faster than the workforce can develop new green capabilities, according to LinkedIn’s newly released Green Skills Report 2025.
The report analyses aggregated, anonymised data from LinkedIn’s one billion global members across 84 countries, covering the period from January 2021 to July 2025. Using a taxonomy of 1,200 green skills identified by expert analysts, LinkedIn assessed skills either listed directly on member profiles or inferred from other profile attributes.
One of the report’s central findings is the widening gap between the growth of green hiring and the rate at which workers are acquiring green skills. Between 2021 and 2025, green skills grew at an annual rate of 3.4%, far behind the 6.2% share of green hires. The disparity grew even sharper over the past year: from 2024 to 2025, green hiring rose 7.7%, nearly double the 4.3% increase in green skill development.
LinkedIn cautioned that the shortfall in green skill growth threatens both climate progress and economic potential, explaining that if we don’t significantly speed up the development of green skills, we risk losing ground on both climate progress and economic opportunity. This is a pivotal moment for governments, educators, and employers to recognise the green transition as an economic advantage and to invest much more in people.
The report also highlights that green skills are spreading beyond traditional sustainability roles. For the first time, 53% of green-skilled hires in 2025 held non-green job titles, indicating that green capabilities are becoming embedded across business functions. These are jobs that could traditionally be done without green skills, but where green skills are increasingly applied to support the climate and energy transition… Green skills are increasingly foundational rather than niche and have emerged as a competitive edge in today’s labour market.
With demand rising, workers who possess green skills enjoy notable advantages: their hiring rate is 46% higher than that of the overall global workforce. This premium has risen sharply in recent years.
Employee interest in green work is also increasing. A LinkedIn survey from September 2025 found that 43% of workers ideally want a job that contributes to the energy transition or climate adaptation—an aspiration even stronger among younger generations, including half of millennials and 60% of Gen Z respondents.
Growth in green hiring has been consistent worldwide. All 47 countries studied saw an increased share of green hires between 2021 and 2025. Among major economies, the U.S. posted one of the highest annual growth rates at 8.9%, trailing Brazil (10.7%) but ahead of the UK (7.8%), Germany (5.4%), and France (4.9%).
Some sectors showed particularly strong momentum. Technology, Information, and Media led with an 11.3% increase in green hiring share from 2021 to 2025. Transportation, Logistics, Supply Chain, and Storage followed at 8.0%, along with Financial Services at 7.5%. In 2025, every industry saw green hires outpace its current concentration of green talent, signalling broad-based growth in green capabilities.
Sue Duke, LinkedIn’s Vice President of Public Policy & Economic Graph, emphasised the economic stakes, explaining that as green skills take root across the economy, they’re driving the qualities businesses and governments value most—adaptability, resilience, efficiency, competitiveness, and innovation. Yet the growing mismatch between the demand for skilled workers and the available talent threatens this progress. Closing that gap will require swift, decisive action to place skills development and workforce training at the heart of climate and energy policy.