To provide additional exploratory data, the survey also included two open-ended questions asking participants to identify factors that either deter or motivate them to pursue a green job like the one presented to them. Below, we use word clouds to visualise the key terms used by participants (Figure 11). While no robust conclusions can be drawn from this exploratory exercise, some insights that emerge include:

• The main reasons participants would not pursue a green job like the one they were assigned to in the survey were to do with the perceived “lack” of “training”, “knowledge”, “qualifications”, “skills” and “experience”, but also “interest”.
• The main reasons participants would pursue a green job like the one they were assigned to in the survey were to do with the job’s perceived social impact, with terms such as “good”, “help”, “environment”, “future”, “planet”, and “society” being prominently mentioned. Other frequently featured terms included “interesting” and “pay”, with “pay” ranking among the top ten most used words, particularly in relation to STEM green jobs. This aligns with the previously described finding that STEM green jobs were perceived as better paid than non-STEM green jobs. Notably, the presence of terms “nothing” and “none” suggests that a segment of the participants did not feel drawn to a green job like the one they were presented with in the survey.

These reasons appear to be largely similar across STEM and non-STEM green jobs.

Note. Words marked in green and purple represent the ten most frequently used words across all participants’ responses.