April 2010, the UK Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) legislation requires over 5,000 organisations and companies to fully disclose their energy use, and requires another 15,000 to begin collecting baseline data. This means these organisations will have to focus even more on managing and reducing their energy usage. At launch it is has been estimated that this market will be worth £750m in the UK. This new market will need to be serviced by new and existing companies and consultancies focused on calculating and reducing energy output. Carbon consultancies will become very busy servicing this new market, however evidence from the Carbon Show held in London October 2009 suggest there is currently a shortage of qualified and experienced professionals.

Carbon recruitment agencies were interested in acquiring details of trained professionals at the ISO 14064 training stand at the Carbon Show. The recruitment agencies outlined  that only 1 in 4 open vacancies are currently being filled with candidates trained in carbon measurement , reduction and verification skills. The carbon recruitment agencies are struggling to fill these positions, this situation will be exacerbated by the introduction of the CRC legislation. They expect that the number of open vacancies will increase over the next 5 – 7 years unless the gap can be filled by trained professionals.

Companies who have an electricity expenditure over £500K per annum will require carbon measurement to be carried out annually and will create a huge need for trained and competent professionals. The employment opportunity for these individuals will be immense.