What is the Skyline Skills Hub?

Preparing people to build a more sustainable city

The Skyline Skills Hub is the ‘one-stop-shop’ for all things green skills in London’s commercial built environment.

We believe that the built environment is a place where everyone can be part of the future of green skills, and play a critical role in delivering low carbon office buildings across Central London.

We want to involve all Londoners who have an interest in buildings and sustainability, from developers to the supply chain to young people.

The Hub showcases the very best built environment recruitment, upskilling, reskilling and diversity programmes which are available right now to current and potential workers in London.

Mission

We believe that, through collaboration, we can drive the green skills agenda to ensure that London has a skilled and diverse workforce equipped and empowered to deliver globally competitive, sustainable office buildings. Join our network of employers, educators, London residents, and local and national government who share this mission.

Looking ahead, we want to expand this crucial work beyond London, and to support the upgrading of skilled workforces across the UK’s cities, and support skills for the residential built environment. If your organisation is based outside of London and would like to share your insights on the Hub, then please get in touch with us:

Vision

The Skyline Skills Hub aims to showcase the best practice for sustainability skills across Central London’s commercial built environment so that we can attract, upskill, reskill and diversify the skilled workers we need to make sustainability real.

Objectives

Central London’s skyline is constantly growing, and we must ensure our workforce is equipped with the necessary skills and qualifications to build a sustainable skyline.

The Skyline Skills Hub aims to highlight the best career and training opportunities that the built environment sector has to offer. We spend around 80-90% of our time in buildings, therefore we need to ensure that these buildings are safe, sustainable and built by a skilled workforce.

We want the UK to have the best workforce to deliver sustainable commercial buildings for tomorrow. Together, we can make it happen.

We want to involve:

The built environment’s business leaders, including developers, contractors and building clients
The supply chain employers who are directly carrying out many of the construction, retrofit and engineering works to deliver sustainable commercial buildings
The new and diverse talent which the sector needs to fill its skills gaps across the built environment. This includes London’s young people, their parents and teachers, and mature hires from other sectors.

Who are we?

The Skyline Skills Hub was launched in 2024 by the City of London Corporation’s Skills for a Sustainable Skyline Taskforce, with support from businesses across Central London’s commercial built environment.

The Hub was a result of three years of collective industry action with other 350 firms from the Skills for a Sustainable Skyline Taskforce, bringing greater awareness of the need to boost and diversify the built environment workforce.

The Hub is now managed by its Legacy a selection of senior leaders in the built environment space, who are dedicated to ensuring that we have the skilled workforce for tomorrow.

Partnerships and collaborations

The Skyline Skills Hub is currently accepting sponsorship and partnership offers with green skills leaders from across the commercial built environment sector.

Frequently Asked Questions

Want to ask us something?

Green Skills

What does ‘green skills’ mean? Green skills are skills that form a diverse wealth of knowledge and capabilities, ensuring that sustainability is included in every aspect of the economy.

What are examples of green skills? Well-known green skills include, pollution prevention, renewable energy generation, environmental policy. Lesser-known green skills can also include, accounting, computer maintenance, carbon trading, sustainable finance and engineering.

What is a green job? A green job is a job that contributes to protecting or restoring the environment, this includes

Net Zero Net zero is where all related green house gas emissions have been reduced to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as a minimum.

Built Environment

What is the built environment? The built environment encompasses all types of buildings including housing, industrial, commercial, hospitals and schools.

What jobs are in the built environment? The built environment involves the entire project lifecycle involved in buildings. This includes, but not is limited to; construction, architecture, fitters, planners, waste management, design engineers, painters and consultants.

What is the difference between construction and the built environment?
The term ‘Built Environment’ encompasses all human-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity; from offices, houses and parks to supporting infrastructure, such as water supplies and travel networks. From design to repurpose, each stage of the building lifecycle is a complex and dynamic process, each requiring a wide range of Built Environment professionals.

The term ‘Construction’ refers to all of the people in the built environment who are contracted under the building contract to construct the building or project. Construction does not cover all of the other important sectors involved in the built environment’s building lifecycle, such as Planning, Design, In-Use Operation, Maintenance and Repair and more.

Sustainability

What is sustainability? Sustainability is a way of using resources that could continue forever. A sustain-able activity is able to be sustained without running out of resources or causing harm.

What is a sustainable job? A job role that has environmental, social and economic boundaries overlapping, and has a strong environmental or social justice dimension.

What are examples of sustainable jobs? Any job can be done with a sustainable element, including; sustainable bricklayers, sustainable design consultants, retrofit coordinators, sustainable investment analysts, sustainable dryliners, climate strategists and ESG analysts. Understanding how every built environment role can contribute towards a building’s overall sustainability is for everyone.

Hub Partnership

How can we feature our resources page on the Hub? If your organisation has work that should be featured in one of the sections of the Skyline Skills Hub, then please email here.

How is the Skyline Skills Hub funded? The Skyline Skills Hub is funded by the City of London Corporation and its partners. These partners contribute their expertise and resources to running the Hub and ensuring the information is up to date and reflects the built environment.

How can we get involved in the Hub? If your organisation is active in the built environment and you are keen to explore partnering with the Skyline Skills Hub, then please email.

General resources

Find some more best practice resources here!

Women in BIM

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LSBU – Net Zero Innovation Programme ‘Retrofitting Skills’

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Small Business Research + Enterprise Centre

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Green Jobs Foundation’s ‘Green Jobs: State of the Nation’ report

As the world strives towards net zero goals, education providers and businesses are prioritising the...

Explore Our Glossary of Terms

The built environment can be confusing, especially with all the new words and phrases that come with sustainability and green skills. Our glossary is here to help.