Midyear 2025 Industry Outlook: Cleantech and Renewable Energy Sectors by Rupert Haffenden

Midyear 2025 is a perfect opportunity to explore leadership hiring trends across industries. As part of our ongoing industry analysis series, we turn our attention to the Cleantech and Renewable Energy Sectors. Rupert Haffenden, Head of Cleantech and Renewable Energy Practice at Pacific International Executive Search, offers a comprehensive outlook on the sector’s performance in H1 2025, current challenges, and anticipated trends for the remainder of the year.

Drawing from extensive experience of helping solve talent and diversity challenges in this industry, Rupert also provides valuable guidance for senior-level professionals navigating career opportunities in this dynamic sector.

A Few Words About Me and Pacific

Since 2017, I’ve been working with companies in the Energy transition space to identify, attract, and introduce transformative talent. It hasn’t been plain sailing, but here at Pacific, I’ve been navigating the industry’s peaks and lows to remain at the forefront of where activity is within the sector, maximizing my impact on this space for the benefit of the candidates & contacts who have been with me along the way. Although the practice has supported cross-functionally and achieved several strategic objectives for organisations, there are two core areas where we’ve been outperforming our competitors.

• Partnering with companies to establish or bolster their commercial, sales, and business development teams in existing and emerging markets.
• Supporting organisations to improve business efficiency through optimising operations, supporting the Operational Excellence and Continuous Improvement functions.

These projects have taken us to 27 countries last year, and as someone who’s an avid traveler, spending time working across new regions is a bonus for me too.

One of the very first questions every prospective client asks me is how we differ from our competitors. Well, my answer is that our relationships are genuine. As a small/mid-size firm with a guiding motto “Small Enough to Care, Large Enough to Deliver”, every engagement, conversation, and relationship is crucial to the success of the practice. A key differentiator is the time we spend at exhibitions around the world and visiting clients on-site, taking the discussions beyond MS Teams to build genuine, trusted partnerships for both clients and candidates.

You can read any report, but here are my insights, gained from being on the front lines and speaking with CHROs, CEOs, CPOs, and other strategic leaders throughout the industry. I’ve included some predictions and practical advice for those wanting to get ahead with their search.

Sector Performance in H1 2025 key highlights and overview

Leading into the summer, we’ve had a mixed H1, with funding cuts, policy changes, and tariffs, which has led to a hesitation in committing to new senior hires.

Fortunately, there are markets & regions which continue to invest and grow, and the Energy Practice focused its efforts there.

Challenges & Predictions for the rest of 2025

Across the Renewables market, we encountered a mix of challenges across asset categories. Solar continues to grow, but the talent market across this category is maturing. As the market leaders solidify their presence, we have seen a decline in newly defined positions. The demand shifted towards backfilling critical roles as a result of promotions or vacancies when current leaders leave due to demanding targets or consider opportunities in growth markets, such as storage.

It’s no secret that Green hydrogen markets have faced challenges this year, with almost weekly reports on projects that will not move ahead due to commercial viability reasons. As a result, this has had a significant knock-on effect on senior-level talent considering neighbouring industries/segments.

Energy storage companies take the crown. Every conversation turns to people’s interest in storage, across large players, C&I and Residential, also with digital platforms and solutions, (monitoring/optimisers/flexibilisation solutions). However, recent news from large integrators is not without its challenges.

Within Wind, policy shifts and license permitting have been contributing to the slowdown of processes; however, many organisations are looking to new markets and geographies for expansion and are utilising Pacific’s network to identify, build, and deploy local leadership teams more efficiently.

Diversity & Inclusion

Most organizations consistently discuss diverse leadership as a strategic imperative; I know this because I ask business leaders this question every day. Each year, 40% of all placed candidates are diverse candidates, demonstrating strong market interest in talent from underrepresented groups and Pacific’s ability to attract and place them. While this marks significant progress, it still falls short of our 50% target, underlining the need for enhanced outreach and inclusive hiring processes on our part, as well as greater openness from our clients to unconventional career paths that many diverse leaders have pursued.

Top 3 Tips for Senior Leaders looking for the next career steps in this sector

The most common question is how to enter the renewable energy or cleantech market without prior experience in this sector. This barrier is a significant challenge, as the market segment is smaller, but not impossible to overcome. That’s why we need to focus on the skills gap in the industry and consider your best route to entry by examining cross-industry experience. If you would like some advice on this process, please don’t hesitate to connect with me, and I’ll be happy to discuss it.

Follow the money. With investment still flowing into growth markets, innovation, and new technology, it’s valuable to closely monitor where investment is going, as this is where you can forecast growth and the creation of senior leadership roles. I’ve been continuously working to find new channels, and I would be happy to elaborate on my sources.

Leverage a headhunter like me, spend time to connect and network with individuals who can help you identify strategic roles that are under the radar. Having a partner whose primary focus is finding hiring opportunities and who has access to confidential roles may be the key to uncovering your next leadership role, increasing your chances of success.

If you are a senior leader in the Cleantech and Renewable Energy Sector, connect with Rupert Haffenden to schedule a chat about navigating your next career move or to discuss talent acquisition or diversity challenges.