Scatec has Africa’s fastest-growing hydrogen workforce

From the newsletter

Norwegian renewable energy company Scatec recorded the fastest growing green hydrogen workforce in Africa over the past year. LinkedIn data analysed by Hydrogen Rising indicates the company grew its senior staff by 50.6% to 469, and its sales and business development team by 62.5% to 108 across 5 countries.

• Scatec is actively engaged in Africa’s green hydrogen sector, especially in Egypt where it is developing a 100 MW electrolyser project in the Ain Sokhna industrial zone.

• The company is also undertaking renewable energy projects across Africa, including in South Africa and Egypt, which could support future green hydrogen developments.

More details

• While Scatec leads in terms of speed, Germany-based energy technology provider, Siemens Energy, dominates by scale. The publicly-listed company added 263 senior staff over the past year, bringing its Africa total to 1,576, the largest on the continent. It also expanded its sales force by 16 to reach 108, the highest among all players.

• However, the picture looks very different for some players. Australia’s Fortescue recorded the steepest contraction, shrinking its Africa workforce by 21.6% and halving its sales and business development team. This could be attributed to the company’s change of strategy that saw it drop two green hydrogen investments in the US, attributing it to “shift in policy priorities away from green energy” by President Trump. According to Gus Pichot, the company’s chief executive of growth and energy, the move made it “hard for previously feasible projects to proceed.”

• CWP Global also downsized, cutting overall staff by 11.5% and reducing its sales function by a quarter. This could be due to the fact that the company’s projects in Namibia and Mauritania are still in the early stages of development, thereby requiring fewer staff than before.

• Meanwhile, Emirati state-owned renewable energy company, Masdar, stands out for its flat senior headcount growth but a remarkable 200% increase in sales and business development staff. This points to a deliberate strategy where instead of expanding broadly, the company is doubling down on front-end dealmaking capacity to lock in projects and partnerships, while delaying wider operational hires until those ventures reach maturity.

• The analysis also reveals stark contrasts in workforce maturity. TAQA Arabia tops the list with an average of 15 years’ experience and 7.2 years tenure, highlighting a reliance on seasoned professionals. In contrast, Scatec’s workforce averages just 9.6 years’ experience and 1.3 years tenure, reflecting its youthful, fast-scaling profile as a relative newcomer in African renewables.

• Masdar distinguishes itself with one of the most academically advanced teams, with 80% of its Africa-based staff holding master’s degrees. In contrast, despite being the continent’s largest clean energy employer, Siemens Energy has only 20% with postgraduate qualifications, pointing to a different model that relies more on scale and technical breadth than on postgraduate specialization.

Our take

• Fortescue’s 21.6% contraction is alarming and highlights volatility. For Africa’s hydrogen ambitions, reliance on players prone to abrupt strategy shifts risks undermining project certainty.

• Scatec’s rapid expansion reflects strong confidence in Africa’s renewables and hydrogen markets, positioning it as a first mover. Yet sustaining this momentum without overstretching operationally remains an open question.

• Scatec’s scaling is also fragile. An average tenure of just 1.3 years underlines the risk that limited institutional depth could hinder delivery on technically complex hydrogen projects.