Why Gen Z -Not Gen X - Might Be the Answer to Britain’s Retrofit Crisis
The Generation That Never Heard of Retrofit
“I didn’t even know retrofit was an industry.” Sonny Collins
When Sonny Collins left school at sixteen, nobody had mentioned retrofit. Not one careers adviser. Not one teacher. Not a single display in the corridor between “Apprentice Plumber” and “Graphic Designer.”
And yet, by nineteen, he’s one of the youngest Retrofit Coordinators in Britain, running operations, reading building regulations “back to front,” and leading teams of staff twice his age.
He isn’t an outlier because of what he’s done. He’s an outlier because he even found the door.
Across the UK, 27 million homes still leak heat, damp and money. We’ve turned “net zero” into a national mantra but never built the human pipeline to get there. Somewhere between school timetables, training budgets, and half-hearted government campaigns, retrofit disappeared from the vocabulary of youth.
And that’s where Sonny’s story begins, in the void.
A Career No One Mentioned
“There was never any push, any advice to go towards green, eco, renewables… nothing.”
Sonny’s path started like thousands of others: a college electrical-installation course, dreams of being a sparky. Then a family friend offered him an admin job at a small firm called EcoGiants. He took it - paperwork, phones, maybe a bit of photocopying.
But the spark caught. The company grew. Sonny grew with it.
“Since starting at fifteen or sixteen, I’ve been pushed through every level of qualification; Domestic Energy Assessor, Retrofit Assessor, Coordinator. Level 6 NVQs. Management courses. I’ve done the lot.”
He rattles through the list with the matter-of-fact rhythm of someone who has built their own ladder while climbing it. But rewind a few years and the question lingers: how could someone so motivated, so aligned with the climate-repair agenda, have gone through an entire education without once hearing the word retrofit?
Education’s Blind Spot
The answer lies in the system itself. Schools still talk in twentieth-century trades: bricklaying, carpentry, plumbing, electrics. They rarely connect those trades to the twenty-first-century challenge — cutting carbon and saving homes.
“Schools and colleges focus on construction, but no one’s explaining that retrofit brings all those skills together,”
When his generation does hear about climate, it’s through doom, not direction.
They’re told about melting ice caps and wildfires, not how heat-pump loops and insulated cavities might stop it.
The result? A missing generation. A talent drought in an industry that’s desperate for youth.
The Accidental Pioneer
At EcoGiants, Sonny was the third employee. Within a few years, the firm scaled up, retrofitting homes across the Midlands. He became one of its backbones, designing assessment workflows, liaising with coordinators, managing installers.
“At first it could’ve just been simple admin work, but now I’m part of the machinery running the whole operation.”
His pace of progression reads like a blueprint for what’s possible when you give young people ownership.
Level 1 Retrofit 101 at 17.
Domestic Energy Assessor and Retrofit Assessor at 18.
Retrofit Coordinator at 19.
He’s the kind of young professional the UK should be cloning, proof that competence doesn’t depend on chronology.
“The knowledge you can take at a young age is more advanced than people who’ve wasted years in different sectors. Just because someone’s older doesn’t make them better. I know every building regulation back to front.”
That quiet confidence, a mixture of humility and precision - is what sets Gen Z apart. They’re digital-native, data-literate, impatient with bureaucracy but hungry for progress.
Training the Retrofit Generation
For most people, the route Sonny took is financially impossible.
“You’d be screwed without company support. It’s thousands and thousands of pounds.”
He lists the figures like a costed manifesto:
- £500-£600 per course at entry level
- £2,000 for Retrofit Coordinator
- Another £2,000 for NVQs
- Up to £2,500 for advanced qualifications like MCIORB
That’s before travel, exam fees, or lost earnings.
Even when funding exists, it’s patchy.
“You see ads saying you can get 75 percent off...... but by the end you’re lucky if it’s 25 percent.”
He praises Elmhurst Energy “amazing guidance, one-to-one support” but calls the overall landscape “a dead end of mixed signals.”
The Warm Home Skills Programme has helped him put four colleagues through fully funded courses, proof that when support lands, it works. But the scheme is a drop in the ocean.
For every Sonny, there are hundreds who never make it through the maze of acronyms and payment portals.
What Training Should Feel Like
Retrofit training shouldn’t feel like paying to join a secret club. It should feel like joining a movement.
Imagine a single, clear national pathway:
- Stage 1: Awareness: taught in schools.
- Stage 2: Apprenticeship: delivered through local colleges.
- Stage 3: Accreditation: funded via industry levy.
Instead, we’ve built a system that filters out the very people it claims to need.
Sonny's Favourite Training ResourceSonnSourceSSsS
When Sonny compares Elmhurst and the Retrofit Academy, he isn’t just reviewing providers he’s describing a culture gap: one supportive, one labyrinthine.
“With Elmhurst, I saw their operations, met the big names, got guidance. With Retrofit Academy, it was long-winded no clear pathway.”
If the retrofit workforce is to reach the projected 500,000 roles by 2030, we can’t afford “no clear pathway.” We need a motorway.
Pay, Purpose & Progression
“Everyone starts on minimum wage, but from there you should be evaluated, how much are you worth to the company?”
For a nineteen-year-old, Sonny’s take on value is refreshingly unsentimental. He doesn’t call for hand-outs; he calls for fairness.
He estimates that entry-level staff should earn £24-£40 k, with experienced assessors and coordinators climbing beyond £40 k plus, not bad for a profession that also happens to save the planet.
“You don’t need a university degree. Just a retrofit education.”
In an economy haunted by student debt and unstable work, that’s the kind of story young people need to hear: you can skip the debt, keep the purpose, and still earn a solid living.
Compare that with the average graduate starting salary around £27 k (never mind the debt) and retrofit starts to look like not just a moral choice but a rational one.
The Culture Clash: Tools, Tech & TikTok
Retrofit’s other blind spot is communication.
“You’d never see anything on social media about it,” Sonny says. “No ads, no push towards our generation.”
He’s right. Search Instagram for “retrofit careers” and you’ll find a few government infographics and the occasional local-authority post that looks like a PowerPoint slide escaped into the wild.
“Instagram’s where you reach people aged fifteen to twenty, TikTok’s just entertainment. Instagram’s where they might actually read a news post.”
And LinkedIn?
“Absolutely no one my age is on there.”
That line alone should send a chill through marketing departments across the retrofit sector. We’ve built our outreach for Gen X, not Gen Z. The industry is whispering on LinkedIn while the next workforce is scrolling elsewhere.
The solution is simple but radical: speak their language, on their platforms, with faces like theirs. Show real young people, not stock photos, earning real money, doing meaningful work, and solving real problems.
Retrofit doesn’t need another glossy campaign. It needs relatable proof.
The Urgency of Now
Every delay in attracting young talent deepens Britain’s housing crisis.
We already see the fallout: £120+ million lost on failed installs under ECO4; properties left damp, mouldy, uninhabitable.
“That money could’ve trained 100,000 people,”
Training isn’t the bottleneck - trust is.
Trust that the system will reward competence.
Trust that quality will trump quotas.
Trust that young professionals like Sonny won’t be dismissed as “too green” to lead.
“Thorough training leads to high standards,” he says. “The problems aren’t training, they’re poor systems and poor monitoring.”
He’s right again. Fewer than 2 percent of retrofit projects are properly audited. Thermal bridges, missing insulation, corners cut, not because workers are lazy, but because oversight is weak and incentives misaligned.
This is where Gen Z’s mindset could be transformative. They’re used to transparency - likes, shares, instant feedback loops. They expect systems to show proof. If retrofit adopted that same openness, verified data, public dashboards, community accountability - we’d fix more homes and rebuild public confidence.
What Gen Z Wants
Purpose. Progression. Proof.
That’s it.
Retrofit offers all three, if we frame it correctly.
Purpose: tangible climate impact, human stories, better homes.
Progression: clear career ladders, fair pay, professional respect.
Proof: data-driven outcomes, visible quality, accreditation that means something.
“Not only are you looking after the planet,” Sonny says, “you’re helping 80-year-old Deidre who can’t afford to heat her home.”
That’s not policy language. That’s empathy. That’s what recruitment campaigns should sound like.
Building a Movement, Not a Workforce
To mobilise a generation, retrofit must borrow from activism, not bureaucracy. Imagine every college running a “Fix Britain’s Homes” challenge. Imagine YouTube explainers where young coordinators walk viewers through real retrofits, no jargon, just results. Imagine a national narrative where saving a neighbour’s energy bill earns the same respect as coding an app.
The cultural infrastructure is there, we just need to plug into it.
If the construction industry could rebrand itself around climate repair, if councils and training providers stopped speaking like grant forms, retrofit could become the trade of the century.
The Gen Z Advantage
Gen Z aren’t the “snowflakes” tabloids sneer at. They’re the ones inheriting a broken housing stock and an unstable planet. They’re the generation that grew up online, used to troubleshooting, sharing knowledge, and finding workarounds. Exactly the mindset retrofit demands.
They value flexibility over hierarchy, collaboration over command.
They don’t want “jobs for life”, they want “skills for impact.”
And retrofit, with its blend of digital diagnostics, site-based problem-solving, and community benefit, is impact incarnate.
We keep saying there’s a skills shortage. There isn’t.
There’s an invitation shortage.
The Inter-Generational Deal
Gen X and Boomers built the houses. Millennials bought (or tried to). Gen Z will have to fix them.
But they can’t do it alone. They need mentors, tools, and trust. They need seasoned installers who will teach them not just how to fit insulation, but why it matters.
That’s the inter-generational handshake retrofit requires: experience meets urgency. No one won a tug of war on their own.
A Call to Arms
Sonny is proud of the pay rates his company gives to their teams. It's good. But he says.
"They deserve every penny"
There’s pride in that line. Not greed. Pride.
The pride of someone who knows their work keeps an old woman warm.
The pride of knowing that while politicians argue, the next generation is already building the solution.
Retrofit isn’t an abstract policy. It’s a youth-employment engine hiding in plain sight. Each assessment, each installation, each insulated wall is a line of defence against poverty, cold, and carbon.
And yet, for too long, we’ve told the wrong story.
We’ve treated retrofit as an engineering problem. It’s not.
It’s a cultural one. It’s about how a nation teaches, values, and celebrates the people who make homes better.
Sonny Collins may be nineteen, but he’s proof that age isn’t the barrier awareness is.
Give Gen Z the opportunity, the funding, and the respect, and they’ll do the rest.
The Last Word
“Why not help Deidre who can’t heat her home?
We’re all struggling, so why not help out?” Sonny Collins
Sometimes the best arguments for national policy come from people who’ve never written one.
Sonny’s sentence should be pinned above every department desk in Whitehall: help out. That’s retrofit in two words.
If Britain wants a survivable future, we need thousands more Sonnys, and fast.
Not through slogans. Not through bureaucracy. Through stories, pathways, and proof.
Because Gen Z isn’t the problem. They’re the plan.