Choose a skilled future
Offshore energies UK 2024 industry manifesto
Protect over 200,000 high value jobs in the UK whilst growing the skilled and diverse workforce of the future.
The skills and expertise of our people are driving innovation in cleaner energy production. We need to secure more talented people for our sector through attraction, development, and retention while also enabling jobs currently in the oil and gas sector to be transitioned to support the scale up of low carbon opportunities.
Adopt a centralised framework and infrastructure to transition skills with a localised solution.
- UK Government and devolved governments in Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, as well as regional government must work together to maximise development, retention, and deployment of skills on a national and regional level.
- Local government and metro mayors to be given the powers and resource needed to deliver local solutions to meet local and regional needs.
- Promote cross-sector collaboration between industry, UK and devolved governments, trades unions, academia and training providers to promote efficient, effective and accessible skills and training opportunities at all levels
- Support an Energy Skills Passport as a central vehicle for transition, underpinning one workforce that serves the whole of the offshore energy industry in the short term and in the coming decades.
- A single skills co-ordinating body, in each nation, to enable more efficient collaboration between employers’ education providers and sectors on strategic skills requirements.
- Promote flexible pathways to employment, highlighting both apprenticeships and higher education
- Continue to support and fund higher education institutions across the country to deliver geoscience, engineering and environmental science, allowing the UK to make the most of its natural resources.
Invest in people and skills
- A reformed apprenticeship levy that
addresses the skills gap by providing the flexibility needed to meet employers’ needs in all nations. - Companies investing in the energy transition in the UK should be aware of skills funding opportunities available and be able to access those when needed.
- Ensure the highest standards of workforce health, safety, and environment, honed in the oil and gas sector, are championed in the new offshore energies.
- Promote returner opportunities across all sectors of the economy, capitalising on existing skills and experience.
- Support industry partnerships with national, regional, and local government to drive diversity, equity and inclusion across the whole energy sector.
- Enable the adoption of digital technologies whilst supporting the workforce.
- Engage existing and future workforce and trade unions and give them agency over their transition by creating long term skills demand forecasts which support career and job planning.
The UK offshore energy sector is essential for the economic and environmental prosperity of our country.
Our brilliant, skilled people work tirelessly to produce the energy from off the coast of Britain that powers not just our homes, transport and industry, but the everyday products we need to live well.
We are proud to make a huge contribution. Oil and gas production alone added over £20 billion to the UK economy in 2022/2023. The offshore energy industry provides over 200,000 good, skilled jobs across the length and breadth of the UK. We provide secure and reliable energy to millions.
By choosing a homegrown energy transition, we can protect skills, secure investment and maximise sustainability.
The UK’s offshore energy sector has the potential to:
- Contribute to an energy transition which leaves no individual, community, or sector behind.
- Secure over 200,000 high value jobs in the UK whilst growing the skilled and diverse workforce of the future.
- Deliver £200 billion of private investment over the next decade, spurring economic growth and fostering UK technology and innovation across the energy mix and meeting around half of the UK energy needs by 2030.
- Meet the UK’s net-zero commitment by 2050 or sooner, decarbonising offshore energy production to power homes and businesses across the breadth of the country.
To realise this potential, we need all parties to work with us and our people to deliver the following steps:
Choose a homegrown energy transition
Contribute to an energy transition which leaves no individual, community, or sector behind.
Choose a skilled future
Protect over 200,000 high value jobs in the UK whilst growing the skilled and diverse workforce of the future.
Choose a secure future
Deliver £200 billion of private investment over the next decade, spurring economic growth and fostering UK technology and innovation across the energy mix.
Choose a sustainable future
Meet the UK’s net-zero commitment by 2050 or sooner, decarbonising offshore energy production to power homes and businesses across the breadth of the UK.