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Careers

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon fosters collaboration that mimics the real-life workplace environment among students from different academic disciplines, including engineering, architecture, building science, interior design, business, marketing, and communications. The following career resources offer information about some of the job opportunities related to competing in the Solar Decathlon, as well as building careers in solar energy, bioenergy, and wind energy.

Find a Clean Energy Career in Buildings

We sat down with Solar Decathlon students participating in the 2020 Build Challenge to learn about the careers they are preparing for. Find out more about what it takes to become an architect, construction manager, solar installer, and more. See if one of these careers could be right for you.

Solar Career Map

A screenshot of the Solar Career Map

IREC's Solar Career Map explores an expanding universe of solar energy occupations, describing diverse jobs across the industry, charting possible progression between them, and identifying the sorts of credentials necessary to do them well. Designed to demonstrate the breadth of the industry and its critical occupations, as well as the necessity for integrated solar training in a variety of related fields, the Solar Career Map emerged from a simple vision: High-quality work and high-quality jobs are critical to building a robust, high-quality solar industry.

Green Buildings Career Map

A screenshot of the Green Building Career Map

The Green Buildings Career Map is a highly interactive tool that explores an industry exploding with job opportunities across four major sectors of the green buildings and energy efficiency industry, charting possible progression between those occupations, and identifying the sorts of credentials necessary to do them well. This engaging map is designed for a broad audience including educators, career-advisors, jobseekers, employers, policymakers, and workforce professionals. It demonstrates the breadth of the green buildings and energy efficiency industry, some of its critical occupations, and the multitude of advancement routes (over 300!) between jobs and sectors.

Hover on the infographic below to explore several career options related to the skills needed to build a Solar Decathlon house.

Graphic created by Sarah Harman | U.S. Department of Energy

 

 

Use these interactive career maps to learn more about clean energy fields.

screenshot of the USEER employment report

The U.S. Energy & Employment Report 2021 (USEER) covers five major energy sectors: Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution, and Storage, Fuels, Energy Efficiency, and Motor Vehicles. The combination of Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution, and Storage, and Fuels, is the largest with 3.1 million workers.

USEER also provides the State-by-State analysis of energy employment data in a separate report.