Data centres and housing add more than 30,000 to energy trades demand, and 48,000 electrical contractors hold the key to growth

Powering Skills Organisation has published its 2026 Targeted Workforce Update, a progress review of the 2025 strategic workforce plan High Load, Short Supply. It is the clearest account yet of the workforce needed to build what Australia has committed to building.

The headline number has not changed: an additional 42,000 energy trades workers by 2030 to meet Australia's highest clean-energy ambitions. What has changed is everything stacked on top of it. PSO now adds roughly 17,000 more for the National Housing Accord, drawing on Housing Industry Association estimates, and around 13,000 for data centre construction and operations. PSO puts that addition at more than 30,000 workers beyond the original figure. Added to the 42,000, that takes the combined requirement past 70,000 — our sum of PSO's figures, which cover different periods — across six critical occupation groups that were already classified as in shortage (four nationally, two in metropolitan or regional markets). PSO is careful to add that the 42,000 was modelled in a different economic environment, and new modelling is under way.

PSO's term for this is an energy "supercycle": not a five-to-ten-year peak, but a decades-long stretch in which several national priorities compete for the same small pool of licensed trades at the same time.

Who PSO is

Powering Skills Organisation is one of ten Jobs and Skills Councils established by the Australian Government in 2023. It covers energy, gas and renewables, and owns four nationally accredited training packages — UEE, UEG, UEP and UET. The UEE Electrotechnology package underpins the Certificate III in Electrotechnology, the primary pathway into Australia's licensed electrical workforce.

Its six critical occupations are electricians, air conditioning and refrigeration mechanics, electrical distribution and transmission trades workers, electrical engineers, electrical engineering draftspersons and technicians, and electronics trades workers.

PSO publishes a strategic workforce plan every two years with a targeted update in between. This is the update; the next full plan lands in 2027.

Where the demand is coming from

Data centres are mostly an electrical build. PSO estimates the sector used more than 15,000 energy trades workers in 2024 and will need around 28,000 by 2030. Almost all of that growth is construction, not operations:

PSO's own assumption is that construction employment on a data centre runs about fifteen times operational employment, and that roughly one in ten construction and operations roles sits in the energy trades. It then says the estimate may be conservative, because the ratio is borrowed from construction generally and data centres are not a general construction project. Industry figures cited in the report put electrical systems at around 44 per cent of average data centre construction costs, with HVAC and mechanical adding a further 17 per cent. One quoted estimate goes further, putting the electrical subcontractor share at "Between 45-70% of the budget for construction".

The pipeline behind those numbers, as AEMO reports it: more than 160 data centres operating in Australia, 24 under construction as of July 2026, and 19 more approved. In 2025 the NSW Government approved a facility of more than 500MW, at the time the largest in the southern hemisphere.

The Housing Accord competes for the same people. The 17,000 figure is not an alternative demand stream; it is the same electricians, in the same labour market, on residential work. So is defence, so is the 2032 Brisbane Olympics build, so are the 670-plus major energy projects in development.

The productivity link is quantified. PSO's research puts shortage-classified roles at 53 per cent of the construction workforce and 33 per cent of utilities. It also offers a conversion worth remembering in any workforce argument: a five per cent productivity improvement in construction is equivalent to adding roughly 30,000 workers. Between 2007 and 2022, the utilities sector recorded the largest fall in work-related training of any sector in the economy; training in construction has also declined and now sits among the lowest levels nationally.

Demand is up; supply is not moving

Of PSO's six critical occupation groups, only two recorded workforce growth during 2026 — electricians, and electrical engineering technicians and draftspersons. The other four have begun to contract while remaining in shortage.

The apprentice pipeline tells a similar story. Commencements fell every year from 2022 to 2024 after the Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements subsidy ended, then lifted 2.8 per cent in 2025 — modest, but better than almost every other trade, which kept falling. The latest national figures point the same way, and more strongly: NCVER's March quarter 2026 data, released in September, show electrician commencements up 19 per cent on a year earlier to 6,870, which NCVER describes as record-high quarterly commencements. Electrician completions jumped 35 per cent on 2024, but PSO is explicit that this is an echo of unusually high 2021 commencements under pandemic-era support, not a trend.

What is not the problem is interest. Electrician is the most preferred trade pathway among Australian high school students and the highest-ranked vocational career overall. More than half of energy employers advertising an apprenticeship report receiving over 20 applicants per vacancy. Completion rates are among the best in the system — 70 per cent for electrician apprentices, against a VET average of 56 per cent and a six-year university completion rate of 62 per cent.

PSO's conclusion is blunt, and it is the part of this report most likely to be misread by people who only see the headline shortage: the constraint is not attracting candidates. Twenty-eight per cent of apprentices surveyed report being unable to find an employer. The constraint is creating apprenticeship positions.

The bottleneck is about 48,000 contracting businesses

This is the finding that reframes the rest of the document.

An electrical apprentice can only be employed by a business that already employs a licensed electrician, or placed by a group training organisation with a host that does. Around 56 per cent of Australia's licensed electricians work in electrical contracting businesses — the single largest concentration in the economy — and PSO estimates 60 to 65 per cent of all electricians work in SMEs or as sole operators. Ninety-six per cent of electrical contracting businesses are small or medium-sized, and electrical contractors employ 71 per cent of all electrician apprentices.

There are roughly 48,000 electrical contracting businesses in Australia. Around one-third currently employ an apprentice.

PSO's Electrician Workforce Capacity Study argues the reason is structural rather than attitudinal. The costs of an apprentice are front-loaded, supervision is most intensive when productivity is lowest, and poaching risk makes the return on the investment uncertain — three factors that compound one another. The report's summary of the problem is the sharpest line in it: the supercycle changes who benefits from apprenticeship training without fundamentally changing who pays for it.

If Australia needs another 20,000-plus electrical apprentices, PSO's position is that most of that growth has to come from this group — not because there are no other options, but because the apprenticeship system leaves few alternative places for growth at scale to occur. Its call to action says larger employers must take greater responsibility — the report names utilities, mining companies and industrial manufacturers as large employers with licensed electricians on their books — and it points out that the industries driving the demand, renewable developers and data centre operators among them, are consumers of the workforce rather than producers of it.

What employers told PSO

The update draws on a 2026 Energy Skills and Workforce Survey with more than 210 respondents and a ten-location national roadshow, engaging more than 400 employers, workers, training providers, industry bodies, unions and apprentices in total. PSO is candid that the survey sample is small in this first year.

The gap between the last two rows and the demand figures is the whole report in miniature: strong demand, constrained supply, and low willingness to invest in fixing it. Sixty-six per cent of training providers expect enrolments to grow over the next 12 months, yet 40 per cent of respondents have no plans to expand their physical or digital training infrastructure.

Part of that capacity gap is now being worked on. On 9 October the Australian Government announced $5 million for pilot projects to help experienced tradespeople become VET teachers, trainers and assessors, with eligible tradespeople able to complete a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment at no cost. PSO leads the electrical stream and BuildSkills Australia the construction stream.

Two findings with immediate practical edges

Numeracy is where apprentices are lost. PSO's Foundations for Energy research found 59 per cent of electrotechnology apprenticeship cancellations occur in the first year and a further 26 per cent in the second — coinciding with the point at which units demand higher numeracy. The Certificate III requires Australian Core Skills Framework Level 4 numeracy, including algebra and trigonometry, while many commonly chosen senior secondary pathways produce Level 3 or below. Completion rates rise sharply with schooling completed: 54.9 per cent for those finishing Year 10, 65.7 per cent for Year 11, and 74.4 per cent for Year 12. PSO's practical conclusion is that Year 9 and 10 subject selection is a primary intervention point — years before anyone signs a training contract.

National electrical licensing is moving. PSO's mapping project counted more than 110 electrical licences across Australia. The Productivity Commission has put the benefit of national licensing for the electrical trades at between $51 million and $62 million a year in economic output. In November 2025 all state and territory treasurers agreed to progress a "Single National Market for workers" under National Competition Policy, explicitly prioritising electrical and engineering occupations. The Government appointed new leadership to the National Competition Council from 18 February 2026 and tasked it with reviewing the mutual recognition schemes for workers; PSO lodged a submission in May 2026. The Council has since delivered its final report, noting very strong support for national licensing from both employer groups and unions in the electrical sector.

PSO supports the reform and has cautioned against a scheme that harmonises to the lowest standard across jurisdictions. For contractors who currently maintain separate licences to work across borders, this is the item on the list most likely to change day-to-day operations — and it connects directly to the licensing wall that skilled migrants hit on arrival.

The confidence problem

The update's least comfortable section deals with what it calls confidence — whether businesses feel secure enough to invest in people.

Around 95 per cent of Australian businesses report some impact from the Middle East conflict, with fuel and materials costs feeding through an industry PSO describes as 97 per cent small business and largely unable to shift to remote work. The Commonwealth discounted fuel excise by 32 cents to 30 June 2026, then extended relief at 16 cents to 2 August, when it ended. Treasury had forecast headline inflation of 5 per cent through the year to the June 2026 quarter; the ABS later reported 3.8 per cent for the 12 months to June 2026.

The consequences PSO reports are concrete: rising call-out fees, higher material costs, apprentices skipping meals, and around 200 electrical apprentices reportedly stood down in Queensland, with others returned to group training organisations.

Behind that sits a correlation PSO puts at −0.86 between the national unemployment rate and electrician apprentice commencements — a one per cent reduction in unemployment associating with roughly a 15 per cent rise in commencements. Past downturns have cut commencements by as much as 30 per cent. With the 2026-27 Budget presenting an unemployment scenario reaching 5 per cent if the conflict continues (the ABS put the actual rate at 4.7 per cent in September), PSO's implication is straightforward: the apprentice pipeline is at risk from conditions that have nothing to do with energy policy.

Where it lands

Of the 16 actions PSO tracks in this update, five are complete, five are in progress and six are pending or being monitored. New workforce demand and supply modelling is underway with RACE for 2030 and the University of Technology Sydney, released in stages from late 2027. A policy paper is due late 2026, and the next full strategic workforce plan in 2027.

A separate mapping project found more than 100 workforce and skills initiatives already running across governments, industry, providers and unions — and system leaders describing them as largely uncoordinated, with duplicated effort and limited opportunity to evaluate what works. Stakeholders identified PSO itself as well placed to convene that work.

Strip the report to its load-bearing claim and it is this. The trades that data centres, housing and the energy transition all need are the same trades. The shortage will not be solved by attracting more school leavers. And the decision that actually moves the number is made by individual contractors working out whether an apprentice is commercially worth it — a question about margin, supervision capacity and risk, which puts it in the same territory as why the skills shortage is a timing and distribution problem rather than a simple headcount one.

The full 2026 Targeted Workforce Update is available from Powering Skills Organisation. Figures in this article are PSO's own unless otherwise attributed.

Published 27 October 2026