One million jobs!

This is the milestone Europe’s solar and battery storage sectors reached in 2025. And more than one in ten of these jobs already came from battery storage.

This is a powerful reminder of what solar has become for Europe. In challenging economic and geopolitical times, low-cost solar power continues to help the European Union reduce its dependence on fossil fuels while strengthening its energy security and competitiveness. Solar continues to grow and create jobs. In 2025, solar employment increased by 1%, twice as fast as employment across the EU economy, supported by another surprisingly strong year for the market, with 69 GW of new capacity installed.

This year’s report also reflects how our energy system is changing. For the first time, we include battery storage employment in our analysis. Solar and storage increasingly go hand in hand: batteries help integrate growing volumes of solar, provide flexibility and resilience, and enable Europe to make better use of its home-grown renewable electricity. Already today, the sector supports more than 100,000 jobs across the battery storage value chain.

But we cannot take this success for granted. Europe’s solar market is entering a more challenging period. Under our Medium Scenario, solar employment is expected to contract towards 2030, as annual installations fall initially before recovering to broadly today’s levels by the end of the decade, while rising productivity reduces deployment jobs by more than 20%. At the same time, solar jobs in operations and maintenance, manufacturing, and recycling are expected to grow as Europe’s solar fleet expands and the industry matures.

This makes the policy choices we take today even more important. Europe needs to keep solar growing, accelerate electrification, expand grids and energy storage, and strengthen its industrial base to build resilience. None of this is new. But if we want a stronger, more competitive and secure Europe, we must now pursue this agenda with renewed urgency and full force. This report adds another key message: we must ensure that workers have the skills required for a clean and secure energy system, largely based on solar and battery storage.

One million solar and storage jobs is a milestone to celebrate. Now we need to make sure Europe builds on this milestone – and creates many more.

EU Solar Jobs Report 2026

7 October 2026