Bridging the Skills Gap: Preparing a Hydrogen-Ready Skilled and Technical Workforce
The H2Skills initiative is a workforce development program aimed at preparing the skilled & technical workforce for the rapidly expanding hydrogen economy. Led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and a coalition of 15 core partners, this initiative focuses on creating and broadly deploying consistent, high-quality, safety-focused hydrogen training opportunities and developing talent pipelines to meet industry demands.
H2Skills is currently focused on creating training and career pathways for individuals pursuing family-sustaining jobs that require education beyond a high school diploma, but not a four-year degree. This includes roles that typically require an Associates degree, a technical certification, or completion of an apprenticeship or approved pre-apprenticeship program.
Who?
What?
Importantly, H2Skills training programs are being designed to benefit workers across a range of experience levels—from those just entering the workforce to seasoned technicians looking to upskill for emerging roles. Our training will build on already existing expertise and skilling pathways to efficiently and effectively equip workers with the hydrogen knowledge needed to stay safe and competitive in a rapidly evolving energy landscape.
A highly trained skilled and technical workforce is essential to build, operate, and maintain new hydrogen facilities and infrastructure in a manner that is both affordable and safe. Broader availability of training materials can complement specialized programs currently offered by labor unions and employers, while reducing the time, expertise, and investments that individual organizations would otherwise expend developing programs independently. Such alignment in training efforts also ensures consistency in safety protocols, best practices, and workforce readiness across the industry.
The H2Skills mission is to advance a hydrogen-ready skilled & technical workforce by delivering high-quality, safety-focused training to meet industry needs. We will do this by:
Our core partners represent a diverse coalition of federal and state governments, labor unions, universities, community colleges, hydrogen-focused organizations, safety experts, and workforce development specialists. Each partner plays a vital role in ensuring that H2Skills develops industry-aligned, high-quality, and safety-focused training programs. By working together, we are creating training and talent pipelines that prepares the skilled and technical workers for the most critical hydrogen jobs, ensuring they are job-ready when industry needs them most
The H2Skills initiative consists of a multi-phase approach:
The Assess phase of the H2Skills initiative concluded in November 2024 with comprehensive workforce needs assessments in regions representing diverse market sectors.
Led by Accenture, the assessment aimed to answer four critical questions:
1) What are the priority hydrogen roles and what is the timeline and demand across the hydrogen value chain?
2) What skilling pipelines currently exist to train the workforce and what additional training is necessary to close the skills gap?
3) What are the talent personas that have high skills transferability and the greatest incentive to enter hydrogen careers?
4) What are the key considerations for developing and sustaining region-specific H2 talent pipelines?
Accenture’s workforce needs assessments identified 18 unique, high-priority jobs across three regions of the U.S. Notably, six of these roles emerged as common across all three, underscoring their broad relevance to the national hydrogen workforce. These six shared priority jobs include:
H2Skills is currently in the Create phase and focused on creating “test-ready” hydrogen training curricula and materials for the top 2-3 highest priority hydrogen roles or skills. These roles will be selected based on input from project developers, employers, labor groups, educators, and other key stakeholders—ensuring the findings of the Phase I needs assessments are grounded in real-world workforce demands.
Once these roles are selected, the H2Skills team will collaborate with experienced hydrogen technicians, safety experts, and educational partners to define learning objectives, design high-quality curricula, and establish effective, safety-focused training and delivery methods.
Phase II also includes the development of a pilot augmented reality / virtual reality (AR/VR) learning module, offering learners an immersive, risk-free environment to build their hands-on experience. This innovative training tool allows workers to:
In the next phases, H2Skills plans to focus on testing, deploying, refining, and expanding hydrogen workforce training programs. Key efforts will include:
We invite employers, educators, labor unions, skilled professionals, experienced technicians, and other stakeholders to join the H2Skills team. Your collaboration is vital to ensuring our training programs reflect real-world needs and create clear, effective pathways into impactful hydrogen careers.
We are currently gathering industry input on workforce projections, reviewing findings from the Accenture needs assessments, and recruiting experienced industry and labor technicians to participate in a visioning workshop later this year. Your insights will help us bridge the skills gap and build a strong, technical workforce ready to support the hydrogen economy.
By participating, you can:
In return, you’ll gain access to tailored training programs designed to benefit both workers and employers—supporting recruitment, safety, and long-term growth in the hydrogen sector.
Ready to get involved? You can join the effort by emailing our team at H2Skills@pnnl.gov to express interest or ask questions. We also encourage you to provide input by completing the Center for Hydrogen Safety’s workforce survey linked here.
Thank you for contributing to the strength and safety of the nation’s energy workforce.
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