Are renewables Development Manager roles still being hired in Australia?

May 22, 2026

TLDR – The 30-Second Read

If you’ve spent the last few years inside a renewables development team in Australia, the hiring market you’re walking back into is not the one you left. Across the senior energy transition placements we made between late 2024 and May 2026, only around 6% landed in in-house development roles. The other 94% went into project delivery, engineering, commissioning, transmission, O&M and adjacent-sector work. Development-side experience still matters – but the doors that are open right now are mostly on the delivery side of the build-out.

What’s actually happened to in-house development teams

The public narrative is that Australian renewables is booming. The hiring reality, at least for development-side roles, looks different.

A few things have stacked up at once. The 2.5 GW Gippsland Dawn floating offshore wind project was cancelled in mid-2025 after BlueFloat Energy’s main shareholder, Quantum Capital Group, decided to stop funding all offshore wind activities and the company concluded the economics of continuing offshore wind development were not viable under current and anticipated market conditions. Equinor confirmed soon after that it would not proceed with its planned offshore wind projects in Australia, including the 2 GW Novocastrian Offshore Wind Farm off the Hunter coast of New South Wales. Oceanex, the developer behind Novocastrian, formally withdrew from the Australian market in December 2025. In January 2026, the government announced it would not be granting any feasibility licenses for projects in the Illawarra zone, and made a preliminary decision not to offer feasibility licenses in the Bass Strait due to lack of competitive bids.

On the onshore side, grid connection is the other big problem. In a 2005 Intium survey of Australian renewable energy business leaders, 20% of surveyed renewable energy developers had waited two to three years for grid-connection approval, with delays threatening national renewable energy targets. 75% said their renewables projects did not achieve grid connection on time, and 78% said their network connection costs exceeded their initial financial modelling. A significant backlog of development applications awaiting grid connection approval has created substantial challenges for the country’s energy transition.

Step back from any one project and the macro point is the same. Net Zero Australia’s project tracker shows current decarbonisation rates align with Australia reaching net zero a decade later, around 2060. The 82% renewables-by-2030 commitment is still policy, but the pipeline pace has not kept up with it.

In that environment, in-house development teams have shrunk. Final investment decisions are being pushed out. Pipeline origination work that would have been done by a Development Manager 18 months ago is increasingly being either deferred or outsourced to specialist consultancies. Boards are not approving new development headcount when existing projects can’t get past connection studies.

We’re seeing this every week in candidate conversations. Senior people with strong renewables development CVs are coming to market – some by choice, some not – and finding that the role they were doing 2 years ago barely exists anywhere right now.

Where the work has actually gone

Across the 108 senior energy transition placements we made between November 2024 and May 2026, the breakdown by role function looked like this. Based on Talesca placements into the Australian energy transition sector across that period:

Project delivery, construction and commissioning: around 42%
Engineering, technical and grid connection (technical side): around 23%
General management, leadership, HSE and other: around 13%
Commercial, contracts, bid and estimating: around 10%
O&M, asset and operations: around 6%
Development-team (origination, project development): around 6%

Seven of 108 senior placements were development team-roles. The remaining 101 were everywhere else.

That doesn’t mean renewables hiring has stopped. Far from it. Developers are still placing senior people – but they’re placing them into delivery, engineering, commissioning and commercial seats on projects already at or past FID, not into pipeline origination. The work is being done; the development overhead that built the pipeline 3 years ago is being trimmed back.

Where senior development candidates should be looking

If your CV reads “Senior Development Manager – Renewables” and you’re looking now, the five lanes where the senior hiring is genuinely active right now are:

1. Project delivery on assets already past FID

Construction Project Managers, Delivery Managers, Site Managers, EPC interface leads, Commissioning Leads. This is the single largest lane in our placement data. The work has moved from pipeline build-out to real-cost delivery on solar, wind and BESS projects that already have signed offtake and connection agreements.

2. EPC contractors and specialist engineering services

Companies that build substations, do primary and secondary design, delivery grid connections, or handle BESS integration are hiring at senior levels. Roles like Senior Primary Engineer, Bid and Tender Engineer, Principal Engineer and Construction Director are all live.

3. Transmission and TNSPs

This is the lane growing fastest in our data. AEMO’s draft 2026 ISP Optimal Development Pathway calls for a further 6,000km of new transmission lines to be added to the existing 44,000km network. TNSPs, network service providers and grid-connection EPCs are hiring at senior level into cost estimation, project delivery, connections origination, and commercial roles. We covered the depth of this lane separately in The Transmission Bottleneck Has Moved.

4. Asset owner and O&M side of operating renewables fleets

As more solar, wind and BESS assets enter commercial operation, the O&M and asset management headcount on the owner side is growing. O&M Managers, Operations Managers, Asset Managers – these roles existed in small numbers 2 years ago and now they’re a meaningful share of senior energy transition hiring.

5. Adjacent sectors with energy-relevant problems

Gas infrastructure, water utilities, critical minerals, hydrogen, defence energy projects – all of these are hiring senior people with project delivery, EPC interface, stakeholder management and grid experience. The skills transfer is real, and we’ve written about this in Why adjacent-sector thinking is becoming a career edge for engineers in energy.

How to reposition your CV

For most senior development candidates, the CV needs a recut, not a rewrite. The strongest material is usually already in there – it’s just been positioned underneath the development narrative.

Lead with what you actually delivered, not what was in your pipeline. A 200 Mw solar project that reached FID under your stewardship is a delivery story, not a development one. Stakeholder management with TNSPs, AEMO, landowners and councils is grid connection experience and community engagement experience. Negotiating EPC and OEM contracts is commercial experience. Running technical due diligence is engineering oversight.

Drop the metrics that only matter inside development teams. Pipeline GW, MW of projects originated, options secured – these mean a lot to a development director and very little to a delivery GM. Replace them with cost-controlled, schedule-controlled, scope-controlled outcomes. The hiring manager on the other side of the table is most likely an engineer-lead rather than a career manager – which we covered in The Rise of the Engineer-Leader – and they read CVs that way.

What this means for salary expectations

Be honest with yourself about this one. The total-comp packages on the development side were built around long-term incentives tied to FID and project sell-down events. That structure doesn’t transfer cleanly to a delivery or EPC role.

A senior delivery role at an EPC, a TNSP or a consultancy will typically have a stronger fixed base than a developer’s, but the equity-style upside is mostly gone. In our placement data, base salaries on senior delivery and engineering roles routinely land between $200,000 and $300,000 plus super. That’s a strong fixed package – but if your last package had a $150,000 LTI tied to a project’s FID, plan for the total cash to look different.

A realistic time horizon

We think the development-side hiring slowdown is a 2-to-3-year window, not a permanent reset. The renewables build-out has to happen – the 82% target hasn’t been abandoned, the transmission spend is committed, and the asset retirement timetable on coal hasn’t moved. Once grid connection reforms work through – AEMC’s ‘Package 1’ final determination on faster, cheaper grid connection access standards commenced on 21 August 2025 – and once the offshore wind framework stabilises, in-house development hiring will come back.

But it will likely come back differently. Leaner teams. More dependence on specialist consultancies. More development work co-located with delivery and commercial functions. The Development Manager job description as it existed in 2022 may not return in the same shape.

For someone two to three years from their next big career step, the pragmatic move is to spend that window adding delivery, EPC or transmission depth to the CV. The candidates we’ll be placing into senior development roles in 2028 will be the ones who can demonstrably do both.

What to stop doing

Stop cold-applying to advertised “Development Manager” roles at IPPs. Those that are open are usually being filled internally, or they’re attracting 50 other senior development candidates in the same position as you. The competition on those roles is brutal right now and the conversion rate is poor.

Stop assuming the next role is the same shape as the last one. The strongest pivots we’ve placed over the last 18 months have come from candidates who walked into the conversation already thinking like a delivery or EPC professional, not a developer waiting for the market to come back to them.

If this is where you are

We’ve spent a lot of time over the last 18 months in conversations with senior development-side candidates who are trying to work out where the market has gone. Most don’t need career counselling – they need a clear read of what’s actually being hired and where their background lands best. If that’s the conversation you’re trying to have, we’d be glad to compare notes.

Talesca runs executive and mid-to-senior search across energy transition, transmission and engineering project delivery across Australia.

FAQs

The slowdown is real and it covers more than just offshore wind. Several developers have trimmed their development overheads, FID timelines have pushed out, and grid connection delays have made it harder to commit to new pipeline work. Across the senior energy transition placements Talesca made between late 2024 and May 2026, only around 6% landed in in-house development team roles. The rest landed in delivery, engineering, commissioning, transmission, commercial and O&M roles.

Not necessarily. The current contraction is in development-team roles specifically, not in renewables as a sector. Project delivery, engineering, EPC, transmission and O&M roles inside renewables are all still hiring at senior level. The sector is not contracting – it’s just that the hiring centre of gravity has moved from development to delivery. Adjacent sectors like gas, water and critical minerals are also genuine options for senior people who want to broaden their CV, but they’re not the only options.

The strongest transferable skills are stakeholder management with TNSPs and regulators, grid connection technical literacy, commercial negotiation with EPCs and OEMs, planning and approvals experience, and stage-gate project governance. Most senior development candidates underestimate how much of their day-to-day already maps to delivery work – they just need to reframe it in delivery language on the CV and in interviews.

Yes – transmission development specifically, and grid-connection origination roles inside TNSPs and grid-connection EPCs. We’ve placed a small number of Senior Development Manager roles into developers over the last 18 months, but the more active development-adjacent hiring is on the transmission and connections side. If your background includes any T-side experience, that’s the lane to lean into.

Three things in order. First, recut the CV around delivered outcomes rather than pipeline metrics. Second, look at delivery, EPC, transmission and O&M roles inside or adjacent to renewables – not just at “Development Manager” replacements. Third, talk to a specialist recruiter who is genuinely seeing what’s moving in the market. The roles that are open right now are mostly not on job boards.

Sources & References

BlueFloat Energy withdraws from Australian offshore wind projects – Windtech International, 18 July 2025. https://www.windtech-international.com/projects-and-contracts/bluefloat-energy-withdraws-from-australian-offshore-wind-projects
Equinor Withdraws From Australian Offshore Wind Projects – Zacks Equity Research, 26 August 2025. https://finviz.com/news/149830/equinor-withdraws-from-australian-offshore-wind-projects
Analysis: Where is Australia on its offshore wind roadmap? – Energy News Bulletin, 27 January 2026. https://www.energynewsbulletin.net/energy-transition/features-articles/4410631/analysis-australia-offshore-wind-roadmap
Australia grid delays pose risk to renewable energy targets – pv magazine International, 17 November 2025 (Intium survey of Australian renewable business leaders). https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/11/17/australia-grid-delays-pose-risk-to-renewable-energy-targets/
Grid connection delays risk Australia’s renewables targets – ESD News, 16 November 2025 (detailed Intium survey numbers). https://esdnews.com.au/grid-connection-delays-risk-australias-renewables-targets/
Grid Integration Challenges for Renewable Energy in Australia – TBH Consultancy, March 2026. https://tbhconsultancy.com/grid-integration-challenges/
Australia tracking a decade behind 2050 net zero target – University of Queensland / Net Zero Australia, 11 December 2025. https://news.uq.edu.au/2025-12-australia-tracking-decade-behind-2050-net-zero-target
Draft 2026 Integrated System Plan– AEMO, December 2025. https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/major-publications/isp/draft-2026/draft-2026-integrated-system-plan.pdf
Renewables on rise as AEMO lays out roadmap for energy transition – pv magazine Australia, 10 December 2025 (6,000km new transmission figure). https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2025/12/10/renewables-on-rise-as-aemo-lays-out-roadmap-for-energy-transition/
AEMC overhauls grid connection rules to cater for AI, renewables – ECD Online, August 2025 (Package 1 commencement date)