Greening apprenticeships: Germany

This article is part of a series developed by Cedefop community of apprenticeship experts. It was drafted by Isabelle Le Mouillour, Community expert for Germany, and revised by Cedefop staff. 

In Germany, in the context of the national hydrogen strategy (June 2020), led by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), BIBB has launched the H2PRO research project to address the issue in relation to occupation and qualification needs. It concerns primarily, but not exclusively, qualifications achieved through apprenticeship.

The strategy serves the objective of the Federal government to foster the development of hydrogen related technologies in industries, mobility, heat and energy supply as a contribution to the Paris climate protection goals by 2030 (reduction of CO2-emissions by 55%). The strategy acknowledges the need for qualified staff in that field to achieve and implement the goals in the long run. A particular research gap exists with regard to qualification and regulatory issues in VET.

To address these gaps, the H2PRO project encompasses the following dimensions / targets:   
1) Identification of the relevant training occupations and further training strategies (intermediate skilled worker level) for the implementation of the Hydrogen Strategy;   
2) Identification of emerging additional qualification needs;   
3) Assessment of existing qualifications and competences towards the specific qualification needs;   
4) Recommendations for regulatory and practical support measures for implementation.

Design, regulatory framework and provision of apprenticeship programmes will benefit from this structured research and analysis.  

The analytical framework includes the analysis of respective work tasks of the skilled workers along the different value chains in relation to new requirements for VET. Skilled workers are the ones who know how to deal with the demands of hydrogen technologies and are therefore at the core of the operation of a hydrogen economy; they ensure the reliable functioning of hydrogen technologies and give impulse for further developments. The project includes the analysis of procedures and processes, work tasks and tools, but also the activities and the division of labour in the different functional areas (in relation to occupations and qualification levels) as well as possible vacancies. In addition, further training strategies and training offers will be identified. A comparison is made with training regulations for occupational profiles that are established in the respective sectors and fields of application. Recommendations for regulatory work and initial and continuing training practice will be derived from identified gaps.  

The fields of logistics and transport (commercial vehicle construction, shipbuilding, aircraft construction, transport and tank infrastructure), energy supply, steel production, chemical industry and refinery will be examined.

The project has been approved by the General Assembly of the BIBB, which comprises all stakeholders of the German apprenticeship system. It started at the end of 2021 and will last until autumn 2024, carried out by a research team at BIBB.  

The H2PRO project is included in the Federal initiative and financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). It is also interlinked with another BIBB project on the topic (also funded by BMBF), titled QuBE. The QuBE-Project, in its three waves of analysis until 2027, deals with the identification of labour demand and labour supply along the hydrogen value chain and the development of scenarios in terms of changes in the production, changes in work/business processes, changes in foreign trade, adjustments in behaviour of households, businesses and government. It is based on a detailed evaluation of Microcensus, the German data source for the Labour Force Survey.

The National hydrogen strategy (NWS) is supported by the National hydrogen council (NWR), and a Hydrogen action plan for Germany (2021-2025).