There are many challenges and barriers to delivering retrofit in the UK, spanning the supply chain, delivery, and promoting demand for such works. Efforts to tackle these challenges are underway through various organisations and initiatives across the sector, for example the National Retrofit Hub.

One of the key challenges in delivering the scale and quality of work required is the workforce capacity and capability.

• Capacity: There needs to be enough people working across a range of trades and occupations to carry out the amount of retrofit work needed across the full project cycle (including advice, planning, design, specification, installation, commissioning, and post-installation review). At the local level, the workforce numbers should be able to meet the demands in each region.
• Capability: This workforce needs to have an appreciation of the challenges and procedures involved in the full retrofit process, as well as the competence to effectively execute the work to the standards required. 

To establish this workforce as envisioned, the education and training system must support industry by equipping new entrants and upskilling the existing workforce with the knowledge, skills, and behaviours required. However, this requires a consistent understanding of what is needed in industry and the appropriate mechanisms for establishing these in the workforce, including qualifications, training, and certification. Creating a competent workforce creates an environment where clients are confident in procuring retrofit work with advice from trusted practitioners. A key driver in the development of competence in industry is the Building Safety Act. The Act introduces competence requirements across all of the built environment, including retrofit, providing the driving force for creating commonly agreed-upon competence frameworks in industry.

Embedding this competency-driven regime requires an agreed, consistent definition of the competencies needed for the workforce to deliver the quality and quantity of retrofit needed to meet Net Zero by 2050. To address this challenge, this report presents a consistent framework of the core overarching knowledge, skills, and behaviours required to deliver effective retrofit at scale, both in retrofit-specific roles and associated roles in industry, for retrofit of residential buildings in the UK. The competence statements presented in this report can be used to support the development of competence frameworks for specific functions and disciplines involved in retrofit work. This supports the development of training and education that equips the workforce for the future, and supporting industry in formulating the requirements for those working in the retrofit sector.

The structure of the report follows the roadmap of:

• where we are now;
• what we have done;
• where we need to go.