Climate Tech Jobs Report: Spring 2025

1. Overview

In June 2025, I analyzed over 16,000 climate tech job listings from ClimateTechList to give mid-career professionals a data-driven view of the climate job market. This guide reveals where opportunities are growing, which roles are most in demand, and who’s hiring—so you can make a focused, informed career pivot into climate.

If you’re a recruiter, climate leader, or climate career coach interested in referencing or building on this data, please reach out to me at eric@greencareercoach.com before reusing it.

2. Data Source & Methodology

This analysis is based on broader data set of 50,000+ climate tech jobs listed on ClimateTechList between February and May 2025. To ensure relevance and recency, I filtered down to the 16,000:

• Jobs first posted after January 2025, and

• Jobs that were last scraped from company websites in March 2025 or later

This dataset captures real-time hiring patterns across sectors, roles, and locations, offering a snapshot of where climate tech is investing in talent right now.

3. Sector Spotlight: Where the Climate Jobs Are Now

Across sectors, one surprising theme emerged: Clean Energy just edged out Transportation as the #1 source of climate jobs, driven by a resurgence in energy VC funding and recent slowdowns in EV hiring from giants like Tesla.

Here’s the breakdown of climate job openings by sector from Feb - May 2025:

👥 Job Seekers in Focus

🔧 Meet Lauren, a mechanical engineer working in oil & gas.

She's burned out on her industry and wants to move into renewables. The good news? Over 1 in 3 climate jobs right now are in Clean Energy, and many require systems thinking, manufacturing, or field ops experience, skills she already has.

🧑‍💻 Meet James, a software engineer at a fintech startup.

He's climate-curious but unsure how his background fits in. While Finance & Fintech is a smaller slice (2%), Transportation, Clean Energy, Carbon Accounting and many sectors are full of software-first companies looking for technical talent with product mindset and startup fluency.

✅ What This Means for You

• If you’re looking for the most open doors, start with Clean Energy and Transportation. These sectors aren’t just big: they’re diverse, hiring for roles from field techs to PMs to backend engineers.

• Carbon removal and nature restoration are still small, but that doesn’t mean they’re irrelevant. These are emerging verticals where niche expertise, founder’s mindset, and first movers can shine.

• Avoid going too narrow or too broad. If you fixate on just one sector (e.g. carbon removal), you may miss more accessible roles in adjacent sectors. But if you try to chase every sector, you’ll likely end up overwhelmed and unfocused. Instead, pick 1–2 priority sectors to explore deeply based on your skills, interests, and demand to find your fit.

If you are looking for fully remote roles, these are the top 10 companies based on number of remote roles listed.

👥 Job Seekers in Focus

🌱 Meet Sarah, a software engineer living outside of the usual tech hubs.

She wants to contribute to climate without relocating to a major hub. Roles in food & ag, financing & fintech, and clean energy software often support fully remote teams, making these good areas to target.

✅ What This Means for You

• Remote roles exist, but they’re not universal. Your odds are best in software-heavy or service-based sectors like carbon accounting, clean energy software, and B2B climate platforms.

• If you need location flexibility, filter your search early. Avoid falling in love with roles that ultimately require relocation.

• On-site roles still dominate. If you’re open to working in person, you’ll have a wider range of options.

5. Technical Talent Map: What Roles Are Hot?

If you’re an engineer, scientist, or technical expert, climate needs you—urgently. But which roles are most in demand?

We found that Engineer (Other) roles—like process, manufacturing, application engineering, engineering manager—make up nearly half of all technical roles. Software engineering roles were next most common at 1 in 4, and Technicians represented ~1 in 5 roles.

👥 Job Seekers in Focus

🧪 Meet Rachel — a manufacturing engineer at a legacy industrial company.

She’s been unsure how to break into climate. Turns out, her skills are directly relevant to climate tech manufacturing, especially in batteries, solar, EVs, and industrial decarbonization.

👨‍💻 Meet Ben — a staff-level backend engineer.

He’s worked in consumer tech and fears he’s not “climate enough.” But software skills are in high demand, especially in grid optimization, mobility platforms, and climate fintech.

✅ What This Means for You

• Non-software engineering is massively needed. If you're in manufacturing, process, or electrical engineering, your skills are directly transferable, often more so than you realize.

• Software roles are still key. Look for companies where software play a core role in reducing real world emissions (e.g., platforms that optimize building heating/cooling, supply chain software, tools to manage renewable resources).

• Don't wait to “get climate experience.” Your existing technical background is likely already relevant, you just need to apply it.

6. Non-Technical Roles: The Often Overlooked

You don’t have to be an engineer or scientist to land a role in climate. In fact, over 60% of climate tech hiring is for non-technical positions, from sales to operations to customer success.

That is worth repeating, over 60% of climate tech hiring is for non-technical positions!

The biggest overall bucket is “non-eng other,” which reflects how diverse and hard-to-categorize these jobs can be. Think of it as evidence that the climate space needs you, regardless of your job title history.

Aside from ‘non-eng other’, the top non-technical roles in climate are:

1. Sales

2. Operations

3. Finance and Accounting

4. Marketing

5. Customer Success / Support

👥 Job Seekers in Focus

📣 Meet Nina — a senior account executive in SaaS.

She’s skeptical that sales is valued in climate—but the data shows it’s one of the top three most-needed non-tech functions. Many hardware and B2B climate companies need sales pros to help them grow fast and responsibly.

📊 Meet Jorge — a financial analyst at a logistics firm.

He’s passionate about sustainability but doesn’t see a clear path in. With finance roles accounting for 3–4% of jobs, especially in energy, project finance, and climate fintech, he has real options.

✅ What This Means for You

• Climate tech companies need non-technical expertise to scale. Sales, ops, support, and marketing are all critical, especially in early- and growth-stage startups.

• Don’t be discouraged by niche job titles. Many roles in climate are labeled creatively or vaguely. Focus on responsibilities, not buzzwords.

• Position yourself as a translator. If you can help technical teams interface with customers, regulators, or users, you're especially valuable.