Climate Risk Management Jobs Are Exploding — The GARP SCR Certificate Is Your Gateway Into Them
- Kateryna Myrko
- 7 hours ago
- 4 min read
Climate risk has moved from a niche ESG function to a board-level risk agenda—and hiring is following. By 2030, the World Economic Forum expects climate-change adaptation to be among the biggest contributors to net job growth globally (projected +5 million net jobs), with climate mitigation also contributing materially (+3 million net jobs). At the same time, LinkedIn’s latest global data shows green talent is hired at a materially higher rate—about 46.6% above the overall hiring rate—and green hiring growth continues to outpace growth in green skills supply.
That combination—regulatory pressure + capital markets demands + a skills gap—is why “climate risk management” roles are expanding across banks, insurers, asset managers, corporates, and consultancies. And it’s exactly the professional lane the GARP Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate is built for.
Why climate risk hiring is accelerating in 2026
1) Regulators are turning climate risk into “core risk”
In Europe, supervisory expectations are no longer theoretical. The European Banking Authority’s final Guidelines on the management of ESG risks set clear requirements for institutions to identify, measure, manage, and monitor ESG risks—explicitly including environmental transition and physical risks and the need for resilience over short, medium, and long horizons.
At the central bank/supervisory level, the ECB continues to treat climate-related and environmental risks as a supervisory priority for 2024–2026, reflecting sustained pressure on firms to embed climate risk into governance, risk appetite, and risk processes.
Hiring consequence: institutions need people who can build or run climate-risk programs: risk taxonomy, materiality assessment, scenario analysis, stress testing, controls, and management reporting.
2) Disclosure and reporting are operationalizing demand for climate-risk skills
Disclosure standards have shifted the question from “should we report?” to “can we report credibly?” IFRS S2 (ISSB climate-related disclosures) is effective for annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2024 (subject to jurisdictional adoption). Even where local rules differ, the direction is consistent: firms need capabilities in metrics & targets, risk identification, scenario implications, and transition planning.
Hiring consequence: demand rises for practitioners who can translate climate data and scenarios into decision-useful risk insights—without greenwashing, and with defensible documentation.
3) The market is paying a premium for “green skills,” but supply is lagging
LinkedIn’s Global Green Skills Stocktake 2025 is blunt: green hiring continues to outperform overall hiring, and people with green skills are hired significantly faster. The same report shows green skills are spreading into “non-green” roles (for the first time, a majority of green hires), which matches what many employers are doing: embedding climate competence into risk, treasury, credit, audit, and strategy teams rather than staffing a small ESG unit.
Hiring consequence: climate-risk capability becomes a differentiator across mainstream finance and risk roles—not just ESG-labeled jobs.
What “climate risk management” jobs actually look like
In 2026, the fastest-growing climate-risk work is typically clustered into a few families:
Financial risk integration: climate risk in credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, ICAAP/ILAAP, and enterprise risk management.
Scenario analysis & stress testing: selecting scenarios, translating them into exposures, designing methodologies, documenting limitations, and explaining outputs to senior stakeholders.
Data, metrics, and reporting: emissions data strategy, financed emissions, transition metrics, and internal controls over climate data.
Transition planning & governance: risk appetite, policy, controls, and board/committee reporting; aligning strategy with resilience objectives and supervisory expectations.
These roles reward candidates who can speak both languages: climate concepts and risk management execution.
Where the GARP SCR Certificate fits—and why it’s a credible “gateway”
GARP positions SCR as a practitioner-built credential covering sustainability and climate risk in a risk management context. The SCR Exam is officially 80 multiple-choice questions, including one multi-part case study, completed in four hours, graded pass/fail. GARP recommends 100–150 hours of preparation time, and registration includes access to curriculum and study resources via GARP Learning plus a full-length practice exam.
Most importantly for career-switchers and career-accelerators, SCR’s official curriculum topics map tightly to real hiring needs, including:Climate risk measurement and management, climate models and scenario analysis, green and sustainable finance, net zero, climate and nature risk assessment, and transition planning and carbon reporting.
That syllabus is basically a job description for modern climate-risk roles.
How to use SCR to land (or level up in) climate risk
A certificate helps most when you convert it into a portfolio of proof. A practical approach:
Choose a target role family (e.g., climate risk in credit, scenario analysis, transition planning).
Translate SCR topics into work outputs: a one-page climate risk taxonomy, a simple scenario “walk-through,” a transition plan controls checklist, a dashboard mock-up for metrics & targets.
Use SCR language in your CV/LinkedIn: “scenario analysis,” “physical vs transition risk,” “risk governance,” “carbon reporting,” “risk measurement and management.” (These align to the official SCR topic list.) Climate Risk Management Jobs, GARP SCR Certificate
Network into adjacent teams: model risk, credit risk, portfolio risk, regulatory affairs, sustainability reporting—where climate skills are being embedded.
Bottom line Climate Risk Management Jobs, GARP SCR Certificate
Climate risk management roles are expanding because climate has become financially material, supervised, and measured—and organizations are racing to close the green skills gap. The GARP SCR Certificate is built around those exact competencies, with an exam structure and curriculum explicitly designed to test applied climate-risk mastery.
Unlock your potential with our comprehensive GARP SCR practice exams and study packages!
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