Career pathways in domestic retrofit: New RISE advice pack series
Introduction
Retrofit specialists are essential to help the UK to reach net zero by 2050. As of 2025, 48% of homes need to be retrofitted to reach EPC C. This is creating a high demand for skilled professionals across the country, meaning that retrofit is an ideal sector for anyone looking to reskill or build a career.
To help achieve this, the government has allocated £500 million for the Warm Homes: Local Grant and £1.29b for the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund Wave 3, creating retrofit contracts running up to 2028.
Careers in retrofit offer good pay and excellent progression opportunities, while helping to create warmer, healthier and greener homes. The average salary for retrofit careers in 2025 is £34,000 with opportunities to develop expertise in engineering, environmental science and sustainable technologies.
Whether you're considering a career change or you already have skills that could transfer into the retrofit sector, there are several ways to begin your journey.
RISE has launched a series of Advice Packs to guide professionals into retrofit careers, exploring both operational and technical pathways. The materials outline how to secure a position with examples of qualifications and progression routes.
Contents
Start your retrofit career
At any stage of your career, there are multiple entry points into the retrofit industry. Flexible training options and recognised qualifications are available to support this. The RISE Advice Pack: Introduction to retrofit careers outlines the qualifications and certifications available. If you belong to an organisation with goals to encourage careers in retrofit, the Advice Pack also shares advice on how to create opportunities and secure a workforce for the future.
Apprenticeships are a powerful way to enter the sector. They offer training alongside hands-on experience, while employers benefit from funding support and long-term workforce development.
In February, RISE welcomed John Renwick, Communities Manager at Warmworks to the RISE Podcast, to discuss apprenticeships in retrofit. Warmworks manages the end-to-end installation and quality inspection of heating, insulation and energy efficiency improvements, and has supported the creation of more than 150 apprenticeships, 700 jobs, and 3,000 training opportunities. In the podcast, John gave an overview of the Warmstart programme, which creates work placements, apprenticeships and jobs. Opportunities like these help people entering the industry to develop the skills and knowledge required by installers - like health and safety, battery storage, heat pumps, and solar PV - to start building careers. This is directly increasing capacity in the retrofit industry to meet the high demand of decarbonisation.
Retrofit careers include installation, but there are a huge number of roles required behind the scenes to support a project. Careers in retrofit are varied, so you can find a role that best suits your natural skillset.
For example, there are operational roles:
- Project management
- Contract management
- Resident engagement
- Data analysis
- Procurement
- Asset management
- Financial roles
- Legal roles
As well as technical roles:
- PAS 2035
- Heritage Buildings
- Related Building surveys
- Air permeability
- Ecology and biodiversity
RISE has launched a series of Advice Packs to guide professionals into retrofit careers, exploring both operational and technical pathways. The materials outline how to secure a position with examples of qualifications and progression routes.
The first two advice packs cover Project Management and Data Analysis roles. Follow us on LinkedIn or subscribe to the RISE newsletter, ticking ‘A company or organisation within the retrofit supply chain’, to be updated when more are released.
Retrofit Career Pathways: Project Management
It’s likely that every retrofit project you work on will require some degree of project management, even if it's not your dedicated role. Project management skills will help you to deliver efficiently, on budget and on time, learn from previous projects and mitigate risks. So having an understanding of the processes behind it will help bolster your credentials. RISE has developed a series of materials to help you to upskill in these areas:
- Advice Pack: Retrofit Careers Pathways - project management jobs
- Masterclass-on-demand Playlist: Project management
- Masterclass-on-demand: Preparing for Warm Homes delivery
- Podcast: Retrofit project management
Retrofit Career Pathways: Data Analysis
People working in Project Manager, Project Officer or Data Officer roles will also need to be skilled at handling and understanding data. “Data” is a general term used to describe all the information a project will need related to the home, its residents, and the evaluation of retrofit success:
- Housing data includes heat demand, building type, energy performance certificates, stock condition surveys or similar.
- Resident data includes eligibility criteria, and any accessibility, hard-to-reach, or vulnerability information.
- To evaluate the success of projects, you need data for monitoring energy performance to show energy savings. Accurate information on properties and residents ensures that projects go to plan.
There are multiple ways to upskill or secure roles in data collection, analysis, validation, or reporting on performance, and you can find out more about relevant qualifications and entry-level employment routes in the Advice Pack: Retrofit Career Pathways - data related jobs.
To better understand the data required in retrofit, RISE resources are a good place to start:
- Advice Pack: Property data
- Masterclass-on-demand Playlist: Housing stock data
- Masterclass-on-demand: Digitalisation in retrofit with Fairhive Housing
To be updated when the next installment of the RISE Retrofit Career Pathways Advice Packs are launched, subscribe to the RISE newsletter, ticking ‘A company or organisation within the retrofit supply chain’, to be updated when these are released.