Strategic workforce planning for utilities that sees the skills cliff five years out, and the capital projects behind it
See the skills cliff five years out, and close it for $7.0M less than contractors.
See one case, screen by screen ↓The board asks one question: will we have the people to run the network and build the capital plan? Today the answer comes from an annual headcount plan in spreadsheets, HRIS reports of age and service, and a retirement rule of thumb at 65. The capital plan lives in project systems, with resourcing by trade, rarely by named skill. Training intakes are set by budget and last year's numbers. HR tools model headcount and cost well, but seldom read the capital plan, so the demand side is a guess.
So the gap shows up late: a project cannot find protection engineers for commissioning, and the fix is contractors at a premium or a slipped energisation date. An intake cut in a tight year arrives as a shortage three years later, because a protection graduate takes 24 months to work unsupervised and a lineworker apprentice 42. Skills held by one or two people, like IEC 61850 station commissioning or GIS busbar protection, retire without a successor.
Estimated split, in working days, for one five-year plan across the critical roles — by spreadsheet, and with the solution. The forecast itself refreshes every night.
Six specialist agents read HR and the capital plan, draw the skills cliff and size the plan; the Chief People Officer signs.
Lumina Utilities runs electricity and water networks across four regions. Its electricity capital plan peaks in 2029, the same year many of its protection and control engineers can retire. Here is how the 2029 protection gap is found, explained and closed, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Nadia builds the five-year workforce plan and answers the board's question: do we have the people? Her home screen is a heatmap of 14 critical roles across electricity network, generation and water, year by year from 2026 to 2031, each cell the share of the work with nobody to do it. Above it sits capital plan v2026.3, $1.26B of work. In 2029, with no action, Lumina is 288 FTE short across the 14 roles, and 4 roles are 25% or more short.
“I can count who retires. I can't see what work is coming.” — Nadia Okafor
The workforce data reader read 6,840 HR records from the 23:00 extract: 1,546 people in critical roles, 37 job codes held for review. The forecaster found 390 people who can retire by 2031 and expects 294 to. The capital demand translator read 214 projects, 14 of them needing critical skills, and noticed the Eastmere connection moved from Q4 to Q2 2029. The planner drafted a protection plan for Nadia to review.
Needs a person: “37 people have a job code with no critical role” — the data reader suggests a role and asks, it never guesses.
A switch recolours the grid by Gap, Retirements, Leavers or New work, so the reason for each cliff is visible. By retirements, protection and control engineers reach 13% of today's people in 2029 and 21% in 2031; high-voltage cable jointers reach 28% in 2031. The forecaster uses Lumina's pension rule — age 60, or 55 with 30 years' service — and Lumina's own history, not an assumption that everyone goes at 65.
Limit: “Never assumes everyone retires at eligibility · never forecasts below a group of 5.”
Nadia clicks protection and control engineers, 2029. The rail explains it: 48 people today, 4 trainees finish, 6 retire, 4 leave, so 42 in post against 70 FTE of work — 28 FTE short. The work is 44 FTE of everyday testing, faults and maintenance plus 26 from six projects. Every line opens its source; the retirement line opens the history behind it.
Retirement history 2019–2025: “Of 213 engineers who became eligible, 38% retired in their first eligible year, 24% in the second, and 3 in 7 offered phased retirement accepted.”
On the capital plan ribbon, Nadia clicks Harrow Ridge 400 kV substation: $186M, energise Q3 2029, Highland. The cells it draws on light up with the FTE it needs each year — 9 protection and control engineers in 2029, 10 substation and relay technicians, 6 transmission lineworkers and 3 SCADA and telecoms engineers. A what-if slips the project a year to show the cliff move, without changing the capital plan.
“The capital demand translator turned this project's resourcing line into FTE for 4 critical roles.”
Capital demand shows each project's FTE by year for the chosen role, beside the document it came from. For Harrow Ridge: project brief HR-400 rev C, page 12, WBS 4.3 protection and control, owner Ken Whitlow — 14 bays of 400 kV GIS, two supergrid transformers and the station bus to IEC 61850, all commissioned between April and September 2029. 14,400 hours in 2029 at 1,600 productive hours a year is 9 FTE.
“Harrow Ridge energises in Q3 2029 with or without the engineers. Without them it doesn't.” — Ken Whitlow
Owen runs Lumina's 48 protection engineers. The role page shows people against the work to 2031, when people can retire in groups of five or more with no names, and the skills that matter: IEC 61850 station commissioning is held by 5 people and 3 can retire by 2029; GIS busbar protection by 2, with 1 left. Four skills are left with two people or fewer by 2029, and Owen can ask for a successor plan for each.
“13 of 48 can retire by 2029, and the forecaster expects 6 to.”
The planner works from the 2029 gap of 28 FTE. The market gives about 8 experienced hires over 2027–28 (38 applicants for 5 roles in 2025). History says 3 of the 7 seniors eligible in 2027–28 will accept phased retirement. The two framework suppliers can cover 6 FTE at the peak. That leaves 11 who must be competent by 2029; at 24 months and 92% finishing, the intake is 12, two cohorts of six in January and September 2027.
Check the constraint: “12 graduates need 6 mentors at 1:2 · 9 seniors can mentor in 2027 after retirements.”
The mix costs $4.48M above payroll over 2027–2031 — train $1.15M, hire $1.01M, keep $0.27M, contract $2.05M — against $11.5M to cover the gap with contractors, if the market has them. Hiring only leaves 2029 29% short. Nadia sends it: Owen Castell confirms the 70 FTE of demand, Priya Raman approves $4.48M, and Rafael Duarte signs protection plan v1.
“Nothing is committed until the Chief People Officer signs. Agents never open a requisition or make an offer.”
On the training pipeline, the two protection graduate cohorts of 2027 move from proposed to approved, competent in January and September 2029. Capacity to train is shown beside them: 15 protection seniors able to mentor, 9 after the 2027–28 retirements, 6 needed. Back on the skills cliff, protection in 2029 now reads Covered.
“Mentoring is tight: 6 of the 9 available seniors would mentor in 2027–28, and 3 of them are the seniors asked to stay longer.”
The same protection gap, seen by the five people who plan, deliver, pay for and sign it — what their year looked like, and what it looks like now.
Six specialist agents read HR and the capital plan, draw the skills cliff and size the plan; the Chief People Officer signs.
Reads the HR extract, the pension eligibility rules and the training records each night, maps every job code to one of the 14 critical roles, and finds missing or odd records.
Turns pension eligibility into expected retirements by year from Lumina's own 2019–2025 history, and forecasts leavers by role and region.
Reads the capital plan, project briefs and work volumes, and turns each resourcing line into FTE by role, region and year at 1,600 productive hours a year, with the document and page it came from.
Builds the skills cliff — supply against demand for every role, region and year — explains every cell, and flags roles 25% or more short.
Sizes the hire, train, keep and contract mix for a role from the largest gap year, sizes the training intake from time to competence and completion rate, checks mentor and training-centre capacity, and costs each option against contractors.
Keeps the critical-role risk register, scoring each role on who can retire, time to competence, skills held by one or two people, successor cover and the market.
Signs; role owner confirms demand; Finance approves cost. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask in plain words, or say what to change in a plan. Every answer points to the HR extract, the pension rule or the project page it used.
Why do protection engineers hit 40% short in 2029?
Because three things land in the same year. Six of today's 48 engineers are expected to retire and four to leave, while four trainees finish, so 42 are in post. The work rises to 70 FTE: 44 everyday plus 26 from six projects, led by Harrow Ridge 400 kV (9), relay modernisation (6) and Eastmere Solar (4). 28 FTE short is 40%.
Size the training pipeline for protection engineers
The 2029 gap is 28 FTE. The market gives about 8 experienced hires, 3 seniors are likely to take phased retirement and contractors are capped at 6. That leaves 11 who must be competent by 2029; at 24 months and 92% finishing, the intake is 12, in two cohorts of six in 2027.
What if Harrow Ridge slips to 2030?
Then 2029 eases and 2030 gets worse. Protection demand in 2029 drops from 70 to 65 FTE, a 35% gap, and 2030 rises to 68 FTE, a 43% gap, the worst year. The training intake still has to start in 2027. Nothing is changed in the capital plan.
Which roles lose a skill held by one or two people?
By 2029, 11 skills are left with two people or fewer, across 7 roles. The sharpest: oil-filled cable repair (nobody left) in cable jointers; GIS busbar protection (1 left) in protection and control engineers; GIS gas handling (1 left) in substation and relay technicians; legacy RTU protocols (1 left) in SCADA and telecoms engineers. Cable jointers have no plan yet.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The horizon, the eligibility rule, time to competence, the contractor premium and the approvals are settings. A change previews first and applies from the next refresh.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Horizon | 2026–2031 | 2026–2031 · 2026–2033 · 2026–2036 — rolls forward every January |
| Eligibility rule | Age 60, or 55 with 30 years | Age 60, or 55 with 30 years · Age 61, or 55 with 30 years — Lumina Pension Plan |
| Retirement probability | From 2019–2025 history | From 2019–2025 history · From 2022–2025 history · Everyone at eligibility |
| Refresh | Every night at 02:10 | Every night at 02:10 · Every Monday 02:10 — and after a new capital plan |
| Productive hours per FTE | 1,600 | Turns project hours into FTE; adjusted in steps of 50 |
| Time to competence | Protection graduate 24 months | Set per role — lineworker apprentice 42 · transmission apprentice 48 · cable jointer trainee 36 · water operator Grade 3 18 months |
| Contractor premium, protection | $128K a year | A year above an employee cost of $165K; the graduate programme is set beside it at $96K per graduate |
| Approvals | All on | Role owner confirms demand · Finance approves cost over $250K · Chief People Officer signs |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our arithmetic, inputs shown: $7.0M = 90 FTE-years × $128K contractor premium ($11.5M) less the plan's $4.48M (train $1.15M · hire $1.01M · keep $0.27M · contract $2.05M), demo data; the working-days split is also our estimate · “typical” = published figures: CEWD 2023 workforce survey (56% of utility workers under 10 years of service); TVA Office of Inspector General, 2024 (a third of the workforce can retire within five years); AWWA 2025 (21% of water utility staff can retire within five years). Lumina Utilities, its regions, projects, records and the people named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Strategic workforce planning forecasts whether a utility will have the people, by role, region and year, to run its networks and deliver its capital plan, and sizes how to close the gap. Strategic Workforce Planning does it with six agents that read HR, the pension rules, the training records and the capital plan every night, and show the skills cliff across 14 critical roles to 2031.
The forecaster applies your pension eligibility rule to each role and then your own retirement history by year of eligibility — at Lumina, 38% of engineers retire in their first eligible year — instead of assuming everyone retires at 65. It adds leavers by role from your history, and never forecasts a group smaller than five.
The capital demand translator reads each project's resourcing lines and converts hours by trade into FTE by role, region and year at your productive hours per FTE, citing the document and page. Click a project to see the roles it needs; slip it a year in a what-if to see the cliff move. It never changes the capital plan.
Yes. The planner starts from the largest gap year, takes what the market, phased retirement and your contractor framework can supply, and sizes the intake from time to competence and the completion rate. For Lumina's protection engineers that is 12 graduates in two cohorts of six in 2027, with the mentor constraint checked.
The critical-role risk register scores each role from 0 to 100 on retirement eligibility, time to competence, skills held by one or two people, successor cover and the market. Each role page lists its critical skills with how many people hold them and how many can retire, so a successor plan can be asked for before the skill leaves.
No. Planners see roles and counts; names and retirement dates stay in HR, groups smaller than five are merged, and the risk register names no one. Only an HR business partner sees named records for their own teams.
Yes. The agents forecast, explain and recommend; they never commit budget, open a requisition, make an offer or change a person's record. The role owner confirms the demand, Finance approves the cost and the Chief People Officer signs before anything is committed.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your HR extract, pension rules, capital plan, training records and contractor framework — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own critical roles first.
We'll run Strategic Workforce Planning on your own HR extract, pension rules and capital plan.