A SHORTAGE of workers in green construction has left existing staff “exposed to exploitation and exclusion from training,” a survey said today.

The Construction Industry Training Board found that 239,000 additional construction workers will be needed over the next five years in the low carbon economy.

Findings revealed the portion of the workforce in Europe needing upskilling to meet green requirements to be 45 per cent, with Britain investing in training at half the rate of its neighbours.

Consultancy Ecorys said the lack of upskilling leaves “a workforce already too small to deliver the green transition even more exposed to exploitation and exclusion from training.”

Decarbonisation does not automatically produce better jobs, it found, explaining that lack of enforcement was a core reason for this, rather than regulation.

Concerns were also raised over green construction training being increasingly delivered by private providers, equipping workers with “narrow, technology-specific skills.”

About 20 per cent of workers in the sector are currently under the age of 25 and likely to be self-employed.

Women make up just 2 per cent of onsite workers as they warned the industry “cannot afford to keep excluding half the workforce.”

TUC assistant general secretary Kate Bell said: “Construction is one of the hardest sectors in which to assert your rights as a worker.

“The government has a plan to retrofit millions of homes. It also needs a plan for the workers who’ll do it, and that means tying Warm Homes Plan spending to fair work standards, and a good jobs guarantee as part of the Clean Energy Jobs Plan.”

Despite the warnings, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband celebrated pledges from private firms investing in the green economy in a speech to a London Climate Week event today, referring to the government showing a jobs boost.