Katy Heidenreich, a director at Offshore Energies, the trade body for the offshore sector, says that preserving British jobs in the energy sector is the main challenge.
“The retention of the offshore oil and gas supply chain, its workforce and associated skills will be essential,” she said in a recent report. “People working in oil, gas and offshore wind are at the heart of the energy system and will be vital to the success of the transition as it gathers momentum later this decade.”
Currently, the UK has about 150,000 workers in the offshore energy industry, as offshore wind employs around 30,000 people in addition to the 120,000 in oil and gas.
That balance is about to flip with up to 100,000 new jobs likely to be created in the low-carbon sector by 2030 – making it an ideal home for the thousands of workers that face redundancy in the oil and gas sector.
Managed properly, says Prof de Leeuw, a new workforce model will emerge, with jobs concentrated around energy clusters that could see hydrogen production, carbon capture and wind turbine construction in close proximity.
A successful transition will see the UK offshore energy workforce actually increase by 50pc to 225,000 people by 2030, he says. Failure to realise its full potential will see the workforce decline by around 15pc to 130,000 over the same period.
“There is a huge prize up for grabs,” said Prof de Leeuw. “We want to equip decision-makers – whether in government, industry or in individual businesses – with new insight to convert those opportunities into reality.”
But will it happen? The UK’s energy history is littered with failed promises, ranging from Tony Blair’s pledge to create a new generation of nuclear power stations to David Cameron’s Green Deal which was meant to insulate millions of homes – and managed almost none.
Stephen Kerr, Conservative member of the Scottish parliament for central Scotland, whose constituency includes Grangemouth, the refinery that will soon close, says the UK’s oil and gas sector should be protected until green promises come true.
“Those green jobs aren’t there yet in the numbers needed,” he says. “And the jobs that are there are certainly not in the same income bracket as those which are disappearing from the oil and gas sector. So, we need to cut the fantasy and deal with the reality.
“Political leaders who talk about tens of thousands of new green jobs in the future are leading astray a public who have little idea how far in the future they mean.”
Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
