Rullion joins Energy & Utility Skills to support workforce planning
The UK’s energy and utilities sectors are preparing for a level of infrastructure investment that will require more than 300,000 new workers over the next five years. That challenge is not just about attracting more people into the sector. It is also about how organisations understand the workforce they need, how they access it, and how workforce planning connects to delivery in practice.
As investment accelerates, workforce pressure is building across multiple fronts at once. Skills shortages remain well documented, but the challenge extends beyond supply. It also includes visibility, coordination, and the ability to plan across increasingly complex delivery models.
Across infrastructure programmes, delivery relies on a mix of permanent teams, contingent labour, specialist contractors, consultancies and supply chain partners, often operating across different stages of the same programme. Workforce planning needs to reflect that reality, rather than focusing solely on traditional headcount.
Rullion has joined Energy & Utility Skills as part of this wider industry focus, contributing a distinct perspective as the only workforce solutions provider in the membership, with insight into how workforce strategies can better reflect the realities of delivery.
Why Rullion has joined Energy & Utility Skills
Energy & Utility Skills plays a central role in supporting workforce development across the energy, water and waste sectors. Through industry collaboration, workforce research and skills strategy, it brings together employers, partners and policymakers to address long-term capability challenges across critical infrastructure.
Rullion has joined as part of that wider effort, contributing practical insight from across the extended workforce. While much of the industry focus is on attracting new entrants and developing skills pipelines, a significant proportion of delivery continues to rely on contingent labour, specialist contractors and external delivery partners.
Bringing greater visibility to that part of the workforce, and how it interacts with permanent teams, is an important part of building a more complete view of workforce capability.
James Saoulli, CEO at Rullion shared: “We’re proud to join Energy & Utility Skills and to be part of a community focused on addressing one of the sector’s biggest challenges - building a skilled, resilient workforce for the future. As investment accelerates across the energy, water and waste sectors, we believe there is a real opportunity to take a more integrated approach to workforce planning, bringing together both permanent and extended workforce models. We look forward to working with Energy & Utility Skills and its members to support the delivery of the UK’s net zero ambitions.”
Workforce planning needs a broader view
Much of the workforce challenge sits in the gap between the workforce organisations plan for and the workforce they actually rely on to deliver projects.
These programmes are delivered through a combination of permanent teams, contingent workers, specialist contractors and wider delivery partners. Not all of that workforce is equally visible in planning discussions, despite playing a critical role in delivery.
This is already becoming more visible across the sector, as organisations respond to growing pressure around hiring, skills access and delivery timelines. While the industry has spent years focused on decarbonisation targets, energy security and affordability are now accelerating investment and infrastructure upgrades. We explored this further in our recent piece on UK utilities hiring challenges employers cannot ignore in 2026.
A more complete view of workforce demand allows organisations to plan with greater accuracy, particularly where delivery models are layered, timelines are long, and competition for skills is increasing across the market.
Bringing insight from delivery environments
Rullion brings more than 45 years’ experience supporting organisations across energy and utilities, working alongside companies including EDF Energy, E.ON and Northumbrian Water.
That perspective comes from the delivery environment itself. Across major infrastructure programmes, workforce challenges rarely sit neatly within one hiring channel. They tend to emerge across the interaction between permanent teams, contingent labour and external delivery partners.
This is where greater workforce visibility becomes important. Understanding where capability sits, how it is being deployed, and how different workforce models support delivery gives organisations a stronger basis for workforce planning.
It also helps widen the conversation around skills. Not just in terms of how many people are needed, but how workforce capability is built, accessed and coordinated over time.
A more joined-up approach to workforce capability
Energy & Utility Skills plays a central role in helping the sector respond to long-term skills and workforce pressures across energy, water and waste. This includes connecting skills strategy more closely to infrastructure delivery, labour market access and future resilience.
Rullion’s contribution will focus on practical insight from delivery environments, particularly around the role of the extended workforce and how organisations can take a more integrated view of capability.
As the sector works to meet investment, decarbonisation and resilience goals at the same time, collaboration across employers, partners and industry bodies will remain essential.
The workforce challenge is already clear. The next step is building strategies that reflect how delivery happens in practice.
