CleanTech recruitment · Carbon consulting
Carbon consultant recruitment
We recruit carbon, sustainability and net zero consultants. We are not a consultancy. We do not write transition plans, measure footprints or sell advice. If that is what you are searching for, you need a consultancy, and we would rather say so now than waste your click.
If you run a consultancy and cannot find the people to deliver the work, or you run a business deciding whether to hire a specialist rather than retain one, that is the job we do. We find the people through our network, for a fixed fee of 8 to 12%, agreed before we start.
Niches
Six kinds of carbon hire, and why each is different
"Carbon consultant" covers six different jobs. The people rarely cross over without a push, so the search starts with which one you mean.
- Carbon accounting and footprinting
- Scope 1, 2 and 3 work for clients who need a number they can defend. The pool is the deepest, and the difference between candidates is whether they have built a method or only run one. Ask for the method.
- Net zero strategy and transition plans
- Fewer people, and they are senior. They have usually sat on the client side or inside a larger advisory firm. The reporting rules have lifted demand here, and the people who can do it credibly are the slowest to move.
- ESG and sustainability reporting
- Close to audit and finance. Candidates often come from accountancy or assurance, not environmental science, and a search that only looks in sustainability misses them.
- Energy and decarbonisation engineering consultants
- Engineers first, consultants second. Heat networks, onsite generation, efficiency and electrification studies. This is the niche closest to the engineering roles we place, and where our network is strongest.
- Lifecycle assessment
- Small, technical, and tied to product and construction. Software fluency and standards knowledge matter more than a consulting background.
- In-house heads of sustainability
- A leadership hire into a business that has never had one. The brief matters more than the CV, and the decision is as much about reporting line and budget as about the person.
Before you hire
The hire is rarely the problem. The brief is.
The instinct is to hire more of what you already have. That works for delivery. It fails when the new work needs a different skill, such as reporting assurance, transition planning or supply chain data, and the advert still reads like last year's carbon footprint role.
On in-house versus consultancy: if the work has a deadline and an end, retain a consultancy. A transition plan, a first target submission, a one-off baseline. If the work comes round every year and needs someone who can walk into the finance director's office, hire. Data collection, supplier engagement and the reporting cycle are cheaper and better owned by one person who knows where the numbers live. Most businesses end up with both. The mistake is using a consultancy to do a permanent job at a daily rate.
A first in-house hire should be a doer with a technical grounding, not a figurehead. A head of sustainability with no analyst underneath will spend the first year in meetings. A senior title without a budget is the most common way this hire goes wrong, and it usually shows inside six months.
Pay moves, and we will not quote a figure we cannot source. Tell us the level and the region and we will say what the market is doing. To test the shape of the hire first, share your hiring plan for the next 12 months and we will say which roles you can fill yourself and which are worth a search.
Why Hiring Here Is Different
Why these searches stall
Six different jobs share one title. The search starts with which one you mean.
TalentPilot
We would rather you needed us less
Most agencies are built so that you call them again. The model only works while hiring stays hard for you, which means nobody selling it has much reason to make it easier.
We took the opposite bet, and not only out of principle. A business that hires well on its own stays a client for years and brings us the roles that are genuinely difficult. A business that depends on an agency resents every invoice and leaves the first time somebody undercuts us. The second kind of relationship is worth less and lasts less long.
So we built TalentPilot. Twenty-one tools across planning, attracting, hiring and keeping people: map the roles before they become urgent, see where the people actually are, write the advert properly, run a consistent interview, and know which of your new starters is at risk before they resign.
And one thing almost nobody has. Every week, the real reasons candidates said no. Not a summary. The actual objections: the money, the location, the counter-offer, the part of the role that put them off. Most businesses never find out, which is why they keep making the same hire the same way.
Everything on this page is one market on one date. Our clients see their own, continuously.
What is left for us is the work that genuinely needs a search. That is the part we are good at, and the part worth paying for.
See how TalentPilot worksHow a search runs
You see it as we see it
- Before we start
- The brief and the target companies are agreed in writing. You know which businesses we are approaching and which we are not, before anyone is contacted.
- Every week
- The outreach, the response levels, where each person sits in the process, and the reasons anyone said no. The money, the location, the counter-offer, the part of the role that put them off.
- When it stalls
- You hear it from us. A search that has gone quiet is a conversation about the brief, not a report we delay until you ask.
What happens when you get in touch
A first call is a conversation about your hiring plan. Half an hour, with the consultant who runs this market for us.
We will tell you what we are seeing in your part of it: where the difficulty sits, which roles are moving and what people are actually being paid. You get that whether you decide to work with us or not.
If there is something we can help with, we will say what it would take and roughly how long. If there isn't, we will say so and point you at whoever is better placed.
No slide deck, no pitch, and nobody will chase you afterwards.
Questions
Clear answers for the next step.
How do you hire a carbon consultant?
Decide which niche you need first, because carbon accounting, strategy and engineering consulting are different pools. Then brief on the work, not the title. We find them through our network, against a brief from the person who will manage them.
How do carbon and net zero consultancies find consultants to hire?
Through referrals, direct approaches and agencies. Most good consultants are not applying, so the people worth hiring are reached, not advertised to. We approach them for consultancies directly, against a brief from the hiring lead.
Should we hire a net zero consultant in-house or use a consultancy?
Retain a consultancy for work with an end date, such as a transition plan or a first target. Hire in-house for work that repeats every year, such as reporting and data. Most businesses need both. The mistake is using a daily rate for a permanent job.
What does a carbon consultant earn in the UK?
We do not publish a figure, because we have not found a dated, employer-published source we trust, and a guess helps nobody. Pay varies by niche, seniority and whether the role is consultancy or in-house. Tell us the role and region and we will say what we are seeing in the market.
Are you a net zero consultancy?
No. We are a recruitment business. We do not advise on carbon, write plans or measure emissions. We recruit the consultants and in-house specialists who do.