If you want to position yourself for a successful and highly paid future in Scottish financial services, this looks like a good option

Scotland's ambitious targets for renewables could bring investment jobs.

Scotland aims to generate the equivalent of 100% of its own electricity demand from renewable resources by 2020.

'Renewable energy will be bigger than oil for Scotland,' predicts Dr Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland.

The UK government released £103m into Scottish renewable energy development late last year. This is likely to boost vacancies for renewable energy finance specialists.

'I see a surge in demand for people with the combination of finance and renewable energy skills,' says Francisco Ascui, lecturer in Business and Climate Change and Director of the MSc in Carbon Finance at the University of Edinburgh Business School.

'It’s a growth sector. Few people have that skills combination so adding expertise in renewables to a finance degree will be a differentiator.'

The MSc, the first of its kind in the world, is in its first year. Former students of the university's carbon management course are working for Scottish Business in the Community, consultancy LTS International, Nedbank in South Africa, KPMG and PwC.

RBS has said that its lending to renewables projects in 2012 will top the £300 million it lent to such projects in 2011.

Andrew Buglass, head of energy in RBS' structured finance division explains: 'Renewables projects have predictable, solid cashflows.'

The bank has already trained almost 200 relationship managers in the technical, legal and financial consideration of installing renewable energy for SMEs such as farmers. However it does not seem ready to talk about the number of finance jobs that will be generated by the extra lending.

Colin McAdam at recruiters McAdam King in Glasgow, says: 'Our power and energy division sees financial jobs in renewables, typically for finance directors, financial controllers and accountants, mainly for small companies.

'But as the sector continues to grow in Scotland we expect to see the number of vacancies increase.'