UK offshore energy sector faces mass redundancies

Although the scale of offshore renewable energies can offset losses in oil and gas, the report warns that the UK still risks losing tens of thousands of offshore energy jobs by 2030 unless urgent and coordinated action is taken immediately.

The report outlines three offshore energy workforce scenarios (the low, mid and high cases) and up to £350bn of future investment in the UK’s offshore energy sector between 2025 and 2035. Each scenario scrutinises the impact on UK offshore energy job numbers of several factors, including government policies, industry dynamics and investor sentiment. Across all three cases, the report suggests a 2030 UK offshore energy workforce requirement (oil, gas and renewables) of between 125,000 and 163,000 jobs, compared to today’s figure of approximately 154,000.

However, the specific UK oil and gas workforce is forecast to fall from 115,000 in 2024 to between 57,000 and 71,000 by the early 2030s. In the lower case, the North Sea oil and gas workforce could shrink by approximately 400 jobs – the same number lost because of the closure of the Grangemouth refinery – every two weeks for the next five years.

Under a high-case scenario, workforce demand levels across the UK could hit over 210,000, but this will require the delivery of an additional 35 GW (or close to 6 GW/y) of offshore wind, as well as sustaining UK oil and gas activities for an extended period, similar to policies applied in Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands.

The report warns that with nearly one in 30 of Scotland’s working population currently employed in or supporting the offshore energy industry, compared to a UK-wide figure of approximately one in 220, the potential risks for Scotland’s supply chain and workforce are substantial.

If Scotland fails to capture the full range of offshore energy opportunities, and the oil and gas decline continues to accelerate, the Scottish-based offshore energy workforce could decrease from approximately 75,000 in 2024 to between 45,000 and 63,000 by the early 2030s.

The report calls for urgent action and cross-sector collaboration to protect jobs, sustain the offshore energy supply chain, and accelerate the transition to a greener and cleaner future.

‘The UK’s lack of joined up action means that the window of opportunity for delivering a just transition is closing,’ notes Professor Paul de Leeuw, Director of the Energy Transition Institute at RGU.

‘The analysis shows that there is a workforce “goldilocks zone” between 2025 and 2030 during which the UK supply chain capacity and capability can be sustained, developed and invested in, so that the transferability of the offshore energy workforce is optimised. However, key to the effective delivery of the goldilocks zone is rapid investment in UK capabilities to deliver a fast-growing programme of green capital projects, which in turn will help to realise ambitious goals for domestic execution of these projects.’