Development of a fully-fledged floating wind power sector in Britain could expand into a market worth almost £34bn ($43.5bn) by 2050 while creating as many as 17,000 new jobs, according to a new report commissioned by the Scottish arm of UK seabed landlord the Crown Estate.

The study, carried out by government-industry body Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, underlined that if the “right type and levels of early stage support” were shown to the fast-emerging technology, then floating wind projects could contribute “at least” 10GW of installed capacity to the wider offshore wind build-out off Britain by mid-century.