Recommendation 20

We heard from DESNZ that a key challenge will be to retrain around 110,000 existing gas heating engineers to install heat pumps. Centrica, an energy company and low carbon heating installer, agreed that it was “vital” to focus on retraining as many engineers as possible to ensure that there are enough engineers to support homes to install low carbon technologies. DESNZ considered that this could be done quickly through an existing skilled workforce.35 The Heat Pump Association and Heat Pump Federation, which represent manufacturers of heat pumps, however, called for more to be done to incentivise the upskilling of the existing heating engineer workforce.36 In its written evidence to us, Schneider Electric said that there were “inadequate” incentives for upskilling and training. It explained that the complexity of heat pump installations compared to traditional boilers and the current insufficient £500 training grant to cover lost income from four days of training discouraged installers from upskilling.37 Monitoring and evaluating progress