Sustainability Talent Market Update – End of Q1

In January we said the market was turning. Three months in, we're confident that call was right.

What we're living through now is what a genuine recovery actually looks like — not a floodgate, but a steady, building momentum that tends to be invisible until it's undeniable. We've seen this cycle before. The firms paying attention right now are the ones who will look back on Q1 2026 as the moment they got ahead of it.

The signals are holding

The hiring urgency we flagged at the start of the year didn't fade after the new year bounce. Mandates that began as exploratory conversations in Q4 2025 have converted into live searches. The pace has continued through Q1, and the breadth is widening.

The sequential rollout across sectors is tracking as expected. Corporates moved first. We're now seeing meaningful activity in infrastructure private equity and private markets more broadly. Asset management and consulting are beginning to move. Nonprofits and asset owners tend to follow later in the cycle — that pattern is holding.

A word on the geopolitical backdrop

It would be wrong not to acknowledge it. Ongoing conflict in the Middle East and broader macro uncertainty have added friction to decision-making in Q1. Prolonged instability affects investor confidence, pushes back rate cut expectations, and makes some organisations cautious about committing to new hires.

But the same conditions are accelerating demand in other parts of the market. Clean energy, supply chain resilience, and energy transition roles are being driven by arguments that go well beyond ESG — national security, cost resilience, and competitive positioning. The organisations leading on this aren't doing it for optics. The business case has become hard to ignore.

Recovery cycles are rarely linear, and this one is no different. Geopolitical noise is part of the landscape, not a reason to pause.

What's changed about the roles

This is perhaps the most important thing to understand about the current market — whether you're hiring or looking.

The briefs coming through now are materially different to the roles that disappeared in 2022. The ask then was often about narrative — someone who could build the internal case for sustainability, influence at board level, shift culture. That person still matters, but they're no longer the primary hire.

What organisations want now is delivery. Decarbonisation execution. CBAM readiness. Transition plans that hold up under genuine CFO scrutiny. Community engagement at the asset level. The profession has been handed real operational weight, and the people being brought in are expected to carry it.

This is a sign of genuine maturity. Sustainability being trusted with hard problems rather than soft ones is exactly what the profession has been working towards for years.

The talent picture

The pool of senior sustainability talent with real delivery experience remains constrained. Professionals who stayed close to the market through the difficult years — kept networks warm, built genuine execution track records — are now fielding multiple approaches simultaneously. Meaningful mobility is back after a long period of very limited options.

For organisations: the window to move decisively on strong candidates is shorter than it's been in years. Drawn-out processes are losing good people.

For candidates: the market is rewarding specificity. Being clear about what you've actually delivered — not just what you've advocated for — is what's resonating right now.

Looking ahead

The regulatory picture is adding structural demand that organisations can't defer. CBAM entering its definitive phase this year is creating urgent hiring need in supply chain and carbon compliance. Mandatory ESG disclosure expanding across Asia-Pacific is changing what credible sustainability programmes look like globally. These aren't discretionary hires.

We've been here before — we called the contraction early, and we held that view when it wasn't popular. We're holding this one the same way. The market is recovering, the quality of demand is improving, and the profession is entering a more commercially serious chapter.

That's a good thing. For everyone in it.