One of the attractions of developing bioenergy systems is the potential for job creation and economic development of rural economies. This paper seeks to quantify the expected employment impacts of individual bioenergy developments. The assessment includes agricultural labour growing energy crops for SRC and miscanthus options, transport and processing of the feedstock, staffing at the thermal conversion plant, employment within the equipment supply chain and the induced employment impact. Power only bioenergy systems are shown to typically create 1.27 man years of employment per GWh electricity produced, regardless of technology or scale of implementation. CHP systems can create more than 2 man years of employment per GWh electricity produced, although most of this enhanced economic impact can be attributed to the fact that a comparative analysis per unit of electricity produced ignores the heat output of the system. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.