Labour and skills shortages in the building energy renovation sector are one of the main obstacles that need to be seriously addressed to successfully implement the REPowerEU Initiative and related ones such as the Fit-for-55 Package, the Green Deal and the Renovation Wave.

Although it was launched in a rather different geopolitical context, the EU funded HP4ALL project scope and goals intends to help cover these shortcomings, with a view to ensure a more robust skills and labour market domain in the Heat Pump (HP) value chain. As a result, legislation and policy recommendations stemming from HP4ALL are timely by means of this report.

This group of mutually reinforcing measures encompasses proposals for legislative and administrative adjustments to foster labour market consolidation schemes (e.g., updated competency frameworks and requirements for skilled workers in procurement and dedicated training schemes for installation & maintenance professionals), incentives (based on success stories) and ambitious private and officially supported dissemination & communication packages.

Main recommendations coming out of the HP4ALL implementation are:

1. Carry out an intensive EU-wide marketing and awareness raising campaign to ensure social recognition and visibility of energy & building renovation professionals with increasing and more complex skills. Put installers at the heart of it, due to their strategic role, without neglecting other stakeholders.
2. Adopt legal and market measures to improve labour conditions, avoiding temporality and fostering long lasting careers, gender balance, attractiveness to youth and workers from other declining sectors, and integration of vulnerable collectives to labour market niches and talent pools.
3. Address an overarching EU scheme for the legal reinforcement of energy rehabilitation training & skills curricula, with Member states and Regions addressing the optimal implementation specialization scheme and roadmap.
4. Draw-up EU-wide minimum content guidelines for specialised training programmes contents, either formal or informal, to avoid gaps. Continuous training for upskilling workers that are already in the sector must be made compulsory alongside providing opportunities for people outside of the sector to re-skill and join the sector workforce.
5. Advance and favour more agile VET certification schemes that can be mutually recognised and repeated by other member states, with simplified procedures for application and certification all the while using common reference frameworks so that good quality of HP workers is ensured.

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