Behind the big-ticket energy projects lies a workforce question: who builds and runs all of this? The North West Clean Power Plan offers an answer with a striking figure attached — up to 35,000 new clean-energy jobs across the region by 2028, with Cheshire and Warrington among the areas expected to benefit most.
The plan frames clean energy not as a single sector but as a regional employment engine spanning hydrogen, carbon capture, offshore and onshore renewables, nuclear and the grid infrastructure that ties them together. Anchored by programmes like HyNet at Ellesmere Port, it sets out a coordinated push to make the North West a national hub for the energy transition.
From projects to pipelines of people
What makes the 35,000 figure meaningful is the recognition that megaprojects are only as deliverable as the skills behind them. A hydrogen plant or a carbon-capture network needs engineers, electricians, project managers and technicians — and if those people aren’t trained locally, the economic benefit leaks elsewhere. To that end, government funding has already been allocated to kick-start skills and employment initiatives across Cheshire and Warrington.
A different kind of industrial future
For Warrington and the wider sub-region, the opportunity is to convert a legacy of chemicals and manufacturing into leadership in clean industry — using the same industrial DNA, but pointed at decarbonisation. It is the green-collar version of the North’s broader bet: that the regions which built Britain’s industrial past are well-placed to build its lower-carbon future.
The number is a projection, and projections must be delivered. But as a statement of where North West employment growth is expected to come from this decade, clean power now leads the conversation.
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