Recognising that simplifying the skills landscape is a key element in the drive to make the UK a leading clean-energy industrial power,
Offshore Energies UK (OEUK — the leading representative body for the UK offshore energy industry) has commissioned research that will provide governments, skills bodies, and the energy industry with information aimed at ensuring ‘the UK has the right people with the right skills in place at the times and locations where they are needed’.
The data framework, called the Energy Industry Skills Landscape, was undertaken by Dr Christine Currie, an independent workforce and skills consultant for the energy sector. It is supported by an ‘interactive dashboard’ designed to help stakeholders ‘visualise and navigate information about skills initiatives throughout the country’, with the aim of ‘maximising the impact of current training programmes and encourage collaboration so workers can be better directed towards skills development in offshore wind, carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen — as well as the oil and gas sector’.
Katy Heidenreich, OEUK’s supply chain and people director, said: “The transition to ‘net zero’ will involve some of the biggest engineering projects this country has ever seen, and it will involve significant challenges in terms of skills supply and demand over the next 10 to 15 years. There are currently more than 170 different organisations administering skills recognition and training, and this is one of the first projects to analyse and map them across the whole of the UK.”
He concluded: “Matching the skills of the workforce to new jobs in the energy transition will need co-operation between these organisations and newly created bodies such as Skills England, as well as the devolved governments, trade unions, industry, and academia. This research makes the case for an industrial strategy with a joined-up approach to promoting accessible skill and training opportunities at all levels. We look forward to sharing it.”