The energy transition and the tech sector, where regulation, investment, and innovation collide.
The shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is reshaping entire industries and creating vast new areas of legal work. The UK's legally binding commitment to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (under the Climate Change Act 2008, as amended) drives policy across planning, tax, and energy regulation. Lawyers advise on the development of offshore wind farms, solar installations, battery storage, and hydrogen projects — each involving complex permitting, grid connection agreements, and construction contracts. The transition is not just about building new assets; it also involves decommissioning legacy infrastructure, managing stranded asset risk, and navigating the politics of energy security.
Large energy and infrastructure projects are typically funded through project finance — a structure where lenders are repaid from the project's own cash flows rather than the sponsor's balance sheet. The project is housed in a special purpose vehicle (SPV), ring-fencing risk. A key concept is bankability: whether the project's contracts and risk allocation are robust enough for lenders to commit capital. Lawyers draft and negotiate the full suite of project documents — the power purchase agreement (PPA), the construction contract (often on an EPC basis), and the financing agreements. Getting the risk allocation right between sponsors, contractors, offtakers, and lenders is the core of the work.
The technology sector generates a huge volume of deal activity, from venture capital funding rounds for early-stage startups to multi-billion-pound acquisitions by established tech companies. Lawyers advising tech clients need to understand IP licensing, open-source software compliance, data protection obligations, and the regulatory risks specific to digital platforms. Venture capital transactions involve negotiating term sheets, preference share structures, anti-dilution protections, and investor consent rights. On the M&A side, tech acquisitions often raise competition concerns — particularly where a dominant platform acquires a nascent competitor — attracting scrutiny from the CMA and international regulators.
The UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 impose detailed obligations on how organisations collect, process, and transfer personal data. Lawyers advise on compliance frameworks, data processing agreements, and the rules governing international data transfers following Brexit. Beyond data protection, the Online Safety Act 2023 creates new duties for platforms to protect users from illegal and harmful content, with Ofcom as the regulator. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 introduces a new regulatory regime for firms with Strategic Market Status, giving the CMA enhanced powers to set conduct requirements for dominant digital platforms.
Major infrastructure projects — transport, utilities, social housing — often involve partnerships between the public and private sectors. The UK moved away from the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) model following criticism of value for money, but public-private collaboration continues under different frameworks, including the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model, created by the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Act 2022 and used to fund Sizewell C. Hinkley Point C, by contrast, was financed under a contract for difference, and the cost overruns there are much of the reason the RAB model exists. Lawyers in this space work on procurement processes, concession agreements, and the regulatory frameworks that govern sectors like water, rail, and telecoms. Understanding how risk is shared between government and private investors is the central challenge.
Investment in AI infrastructure — data centres, chip fabrication, and cloud capacity — has become the dominant theme in tech, with major deals driven by the compute demands of large language models. In energy, the hydrogen economy is attracting serious capital, with governments offering production subsidies to make green hydrogen competitive. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is moving from pilot to commercial scale, with the UK licensing its first transport and storage networks. Meanwhile, the convergence of energy and tech — smart grids, AI-optimised energy trading, and digital twins for infrastructure — is creating genuinely new categories of legal work.
Energy and technology are the two sectors generating the most new legal work across the City. Firms are hiring aggressively in both areas, and interviewers expect you to have a view on the energy transition, data regulation, and how technology is reshaping deal activity. Being able to discuss a recent offshore wind deal or explain why AI raises competition concerns shows you understand where the profession is heading.
“What legal issues arise from the energy transition to renewables?”
What they're assessing
Awareness of a rapidly growing legal sector and the ability to identify the specific types of legal work it generates — not just a generic comment about climate change.
Answer skeleton
The energy transition generates work across several legal disciplines. Project finance lawyers structure the debt and equity for large renewable projects — offshore wind, solar farms, hydrogen plants. M&A lawyers advise on acquisitions of energy companies and asset portfolios as the sector consolidates. Regulatory lawyers deal with grid connection consents, planning permissions, and the evolving subsidy regime. There are also complex contractual issues around power purchase agreements — long-term contracts between energy generators and buyers — and emerging questions around carbon credits and ESG disclosure. The scale of infrastructure investment required means this is one of the most active areas in the City for the next decade.
“What is a power purchase agreement (PPA) and why has it become commercially important?”
What they're assessing
Specific knowledge of a key energy contract structure — showing you have read beyond the headlines.
Answer skeleton
A PPA is a long-term contract under which a buyer (often a corporate) agrees to purchase electricity directly from a renewable energy generator at a fixed or indexed price. They have become commercially significant because they provide the revenue certainty that makes renewable projects bankable — lenders will finance a wind farm with a 15-year PPA in place where they might not without one. For corporates, PPAs allow them to meet sustainability commitments and hedge against energy price volatility. Lawyers are involved in negotiating price mechanisms, force majeure provisions, termination rights, and the interaction with grid connection arrangements. The market has grown rapidly as corporate net-zero commitments drive demand.
“How is technology changing the types of M&A deals lawyers work on?”
What they're assessing
Commercial awareness of how the tech sector intersects with M&A practice — and specific legal issues that arise in tech deals.
Answer skeleton
Technology M&A has become one of the dominant deal categories. The legal work differs from traditional M&A in several ways: intellectual property due diligence is central — assessing ownership of code, patents, and data; data protection compliance is a major risk area, especially GDPR obligations inherited on acquisition; and regulatory scrutiny has intensified, with competition authorities examining Big Tech acquisitions for anti-competitive effects. Valuation is also more complex, often based on user metrics or IP rather than traditional EBITDA. The pace of the market — with deal timelines compressed and earn-out structures common — creates distinctive drafting challenges. Lawyers advising on tech M&A need both transactional skill and sector-specific fluency.
“What legal challenges arise when a technology company seeks to acquire a competitor, and how do regulators in the UK and EU approach these deals differently from traditional M&A?”
What they're assessing
Awareness of how competition law has evolved to address digital markets — and the specific concerns around data, market power, and killer acquisitions.
Answer skeleton
Context: regulators are increasingly scrutinising acquisitions by large tech platforms, concerned that incumbents are buying nascent competitors to neutralise threats rather than to achieve genuine synergies — the so-called 'killer acquisition' problem. Commercial implication: even small deals below traditional merger control thresholds can attract review, making deal certainty harder to achieve and requiring earlier regulatory engagement in transaction planning. Legal angle: the CMA's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 designates Strategic Market Status (SMS) for the largest platforms, giving the CMA new powers; the EU Digital Markets Act creates additional gatekeeper obligations and mandatory notification for certain acquisitions regardless of size. Current hook/your view: I think the UK and EU are right to rethink thresholds based on revenue alone — acquisition value or user base are better proxies for competitive impact in digital markets, and I expect enforcement to intensify as these new regimes bed in.
“How does the UK's planning and consenting process create legal risk for large renewable energy infrastructure projects?”
What they're assessing
Practical understanding of how project development timelines — not just financing or construction — are shaped by legal process, specifically relevant to energy transition deals.
Answer skeleton
Context: onshore wind and large-scale solar projects require development consent under the Planning Act 2008 (nationally significant infrastructure projects) or planning permission under the TCPA, with additional environmental impact assessment and habitat regulation requirements. Commercial implication: a project that cannot obtain consent on time, or faces judicial review of a consent decision, creates material cost overruns and potentially kills the investment case — particularly for projects with government contracts (CFD) tied to commissioning deadlines. Legal angle: lawyers advise on the DCO (Development Consent Order) application process, environmental law compliance, landowner negotiations, and any judicial review risk — a challenge by a local authority or environmental group can delay a project by years. Current hook/your view: I think the recent planning reforms — the 2024 lifting of the de facto onshore wind ban in England, followed by the 2025 order returning onshore wind above 100MW to the NSIP regime — are commercially significant because consenting delay, not technology or financing cost, is the main bottleneck to the UK meeting its renewable capacity targets.
Keep reading
Keep up with the stories that move these practice areas
A guide gives you the background. The daily briefing covers what is happening right now across M&A, capital markets, disputes and the rest, so you have something current to say when it counts.
Sign up free