MSPs are taking evidence this week on Scotland’s draft Climate Change Plan, and one theme keeps coming up: the country simply doesn’t have enough skilled people to deliver its net zero ambitions. For anyone working in OR, this isn’t just a policy problem, it’s a classic capacity-planning puzzle on a national scale.
RIAS has been clear that hitting the 2045 target will take more than enthusiasm and new technologies. It will require people with the right expertise, in the right places, at the right time. And that’s where the cracks show. Scotland doesn’t just face a shortage of workers; it faces a shortage of skilled workers who can design and deliver complex building upgrades, manage retrofit programmes, and integrate low-carbon heating systems. If you’ve ever tried modelling a workforce pipeline with long training times and uneven regional demand, you’ll recognise the challenge immediately.
Most homes still rely on fossil-fuel heating, around 90%, ven though efficiency has improved dramatically since the 1990s. The plan calls for a full shift to zero-carbon heat by 2045. On paper, it sounds neat. In practice, it means navigating supply-chain constraints, investment cycles, and a huge programme of retrofit works. OR has a natural role here: from sequencing upgrades in a sensible order to testing policy scenarios that balance cost, carbon, and disruption for households.
The Government’s proposed Heat Pump Skills Fund is a start. It aims to support plumbers and heating engineers, especially in rural areas where labour is already stretched. But it also raises questions familiar to OR practitioners: how do you target funding so it actually unblocks the system? How fast can the training capacity scale? And what happens to delivery timelines if it doesn’t?
RIAS is also pushing for stronger investment in colleges and universities, plus clearer building regulations that bring Scotland in line with more ambitious European standards. There’s something very human in their concern: many architects feel they’re working with rules that don’t quite match the scale of the climate challenge. Their point about Scotland’s tenements is a reminder that system efficiency often sits in the fabric we already have, dense, walkable neighbourhoods that heat well when properly insulated.
And then there’s the 92,000 vacant homes. For OR, that’s a resource-allocation problem wrapped inside a social one: how do you turn empty assets into warm, low-carbon homes that strengthen communities rather than hollow them out?
The truth is, Scotland’s transition hinges on more than political commitment. It depends on whether the country can build the skilled, resilient system needed to deliver it, and that’s a conversation OR is uniquely placed to inform.