In order to deliver Scotland’s ambitious targets on net zero, we must now grow the skillsets of our workforce, writes David Whitehouse, Offshore Energies UK
DECARBONISING our economy, while ensuring security of energy supply, represents one of the greatest engineering challenges and most exciting opportunities our country has ever faced.
Key to navigating it, and delivering a successful energy transition, will be fostering the growth and skills of the UK’s energy workforce.
Here in the UK, we already benefit from more than 50 years’ experience of North Sea oil and gas operations, with our workforce among the most highly skilled and best equipped in the world, adhering to the highest standards of health, safety, and environmental performance.
Based both onshore and offshore, the expertise these professionals harness to produce oil and gas from our waters, is exactly what is required to unlock the low carbon energy of the future.
Their world class engineering skills are already being deployed across carbon capture and hydrogen generation plants, developing carbon storage well technology, surveying wind farm locations, manufacturing subsea cables for wind farms.
In Scotland, over 93,000 people currently enjoy rewarding careers in the oil and gas industry, and research from the Robert Gordon University has shown that more than 90% of the workforce have skills with medium to high transferability that can be deployed across the offshore renewables sector – making them invaluable to deliver our energy transition by 2030.
From engineering to financing and project management, their expertise is our greatest asset in safeguarding our energy future while ensuring the sector continues to make a valuable contribution to our national prosperity.
But this alone will not help us realise our net zero ambitions, and our workforce must continue to expand, diversify, and upskill.
Embracing a holistic energy mix
EARLIER this month, OEUK published its latest Workforce Insight Report, which set out how we must plan for the future to transform the existing supply chain, stimulate investment, create jobs and drive economic growth in the UK.
Affordable, reliable, lower carbon energy is possible, but it will require us to embrace fully an integrated energy supply chain.
This means leaning into our established oil and gas sector and embracing it as a critical component of the UK’s energy mix as we supercharge the roll out of wind, hydrogen, and carbon capture technologies.
This will allow us to keep our homes warm and lights powered, while ensuring we retain and support the workers whose skills will be vital for building our energy future.
This is not a new concept, and for decades, companies and their workers across the supply chain have moved seamlessly between projects related to oil and gas exploration and production, nuclear plant construction, wind turbine manufacturing and installation and more.
But the next step in protecting and expanding the number of energy jobs required to meet our net zero aspirations commands a deeper level of collaboration and planning.
This means that industry itself must take responsibility for attracting and retaining talent, positioning itself as an attractive employer that supports quality jobs and inclusive working cultures.
We must continue to champion under-represented groups to build a strong and diverse workforce that better reflects the communities in which we operate, dedicating ourselves to the highest standards of workforce health, safety and environmental care as we transition to a lower carbon world.
But we cannot achieve this in isolation, and government must make it clear, through policy and regulatory consistency, that the energy sector supply chain and jobs is a backbone of the UK economy.
A window of opportunity
OUR report found that up to £200bn could be invested in offshore energy projects in the remainder of the decade, which is the level of investment required to get us where we want to be in 2030.
But without government support, the network of companies that provide goods and services to oil and gas projects as well as to offshore wind, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage, will be seriously challenged alongside the thousands of jobs they support.
The time to act is now. In fact, our findings revealed that there is a window of workforce opportunity between 2024 and 2028 when UK supply chain capacity can be sustained and developed, and the transferability of the offshore energy workforce can be optimised.
If we fail to set things in motion – rapidly - there will not be enough skilled people to support the growth of low carbon energies across the next decade, increasing our reliance on imports and threatening our net zero future.
Bolstering the workforce
MEANWHILE, in September, the Robert Gordon University released its groundbreaking report, “Powering up the Workforce” exploring the potential growth in UK jobs if the government’s British Energy Security Strategy becomes a reality.
The numbers are staggering: By 2030, the offshore energy workforce could expand by nearly 75,000, reaching a total of 225,000 when accounting for direct and indirect additions.
The opportunity for home-grown energy and new high-value jobs, while supporting those already embedded in domestic oil and gas production is therefore enormous.
However, it hinges on fiscal stability, an attractive investment environment and cross-energy sector cooperation.
Fostering a futureproof plan
AS the leading representative body for the UK’s integrating offshore industry, OEUK is well positioned to bring a holistic approach to addressing the challenges facing our workforce.
We know that here in the UK, we are fortunate to have fantastic people with highly transferable skills that will be crucial to achieving the UK’s net zero targets.
But for this to be realised, the traditional oil and gas supply chain, including assets and expertise, must remain anchored in the country.
That means overcoming the conflict between domestic oil and gas production and the acceleration of renewable energy on the journey to net zero, and accepting that the two go intrinsically together.
But in addition to recognising and retaining these existing positions as part of a broader transformation, we must also expand and diversify our workforce – creating good jobs now and for the future.
Again, we can only achieve this through collaboration, not by setting one sector against another.
Affordable, reliable, lower carbon energy which generates jobs, grows the economy, and reduces emissions is within reach, but we need to act now before it is too late. Cooperation between governments, companies, trade unions and training providers will remain key, but the UK must also become an irresistible place to do business.
Our sector requires timely and increased investment and an integrated and competitive regulatory and fiscal environment. Failing to act now means we’ll lose out to other more competitive regions around the globe.
The opportunity to deliver a homegrown energy transition in here and we must work together to make it a reality.
David Whitehouse is CEO of Offshore Energies UK, the leading representative body for the UK’s integrating offshore energy industry
This article was brought to you in association with Offshore Energies UK
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