Support Needed to Stop Loss of Skilled North Sea Oil and Gas Workers, MPs Hear

Kirsty Blackman said the UK could experience a skills shortage, which might impact the government’s plans to expand the renewable energy sector.

The oil platform Stena Spey is moved with tugboats among other rigs that have been left in the Cromarty Firth near Invergordon in the Highlands of Scotland, on Feb. 15, 2016. Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

The government must do more to help North Sea oil and gas workers during the energy industry’s transition from carbon-based fuels to renewables, MPs have heard.

During a Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday, the SNP’s Kirsty Blackman said that the rate of job creation in the renewables market is failing to keep pace with the decline of the oil and gas industry. As a result, experienced workers may be forced to seek opportunities abroad.

Blackman cautioned that this could lead to a critical skills shortage in her constituency, which could impact the government’s plans to expand the UK’s renewable energy sector.

She said: “We are at a tipping point. The risk is that these highly mobile, highly paid oil and gas workers will go abroad.”

The MP explained that these workers have high levels of skill transferability, and as drilling processes vary little around the world, they could find well-paying jobs abroad, such as in Dubai.

This scenario is not hypothetical, according to Blackman, citing responses to an energy transition survey which she said showed that “a significant percentage of these people are moving to postings abroad either within company or in other companies.”

The MP for Aberdeen North urged the Labour government to do more to protect jobs and communities in this transitional phase.

She noted that just 25 percent of offshore oil and gas jobs are located in the northeast of Scotland, highlighting that the jobs transition is an issue impacting all parts of the UK.

Struggle to Find Skills

Blackman added that a potential exodus of skilled North Sea workers would be difficult to replace.

She said: “Companies are struggling to find people with the skills they need, whether in oil and gas or offshore renewables. The people who will be building offshore renewables will be working three-on, three-off shifts, in the same way that oil and gas workers do.

“It is really difficult to adjust to life on three-on, three-off shifts—it is not easy for workers to change their lives and ensure that someone is home looking after their kids if they have a family. Oil and gas workers have that transferability, because their lifestyle is already set up to do that.”

The SNP MP also expressed concern that younger generations, seeing their relatives made redundant in the oil and gas industry, may fear a similar fate and be discouraged from pursuing careers in engineering, potentially worsening recruitment challenges.

Grangemouth

MPs from across the political spectrum echoed Blackman’s concerns about safeguarding jobs and supporting communities during the transition to renewable energy.

Also speaking was Brian Leishman, the Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, the constituency home to Scotland’s only oil refinery which is closing this year.

Leishman said: “The fate of the skilled workers of the oil and gas sector hangs in the balance, and nowhere more so than in Grangemouth in my constituency. Once known as Scotland’s boomtown, Grangemouth has refined oil for more than a century. The refinery has been a generational employer for local families—a destination that has provided transformational opportunity for local people.”

RWE's Gwynt y Mor, the world's second largest offshore wind farm located eight miles offshore in Liverpool Bay, off the coast of North Wales, on July 26, 2022. Ben Birchall/PA Wire

The Labour MP warned that “jobs will be lost, and the new energy industries are just not ready.”

He urged the government to take similar action to its recent intervention with British Steel, calling for the extension of the Grangemouth refinery’s operations to preserve jobs until a long-term use for the site is established.

Planning

Responding on behalf of the government, energy minister Michael Shanks said: “The truth is that we should have been planning for this transition a long time ago.

“[Leishman] talked about Grangemouth. There is no greater example of the failure to plan for the transition than Grangemouth: we knew years ago that it was in a precarious position and should have been planning for the workforce at that point.

“My driving purpose in my role is ensure that we do not make the same mistake again in the wider North sea sector.”

Shanks added that the government’s “clean power mission” is not just about decarbonising the grid, but creating jobs in manufacturing and the energy industry in the communities that members had mentioned.

The debate came ahead of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announcing a £300 million investment in offshore wind supply chains, which he said will support the creation of jobs and revitalise the UK’s industrial heartlands.

Starmer said on Thursday: “Delivering the Plan for Change means winning the race for the clean energy jobs of the future, which will drive growth and help us reach clean power by 2030.

“That is why I am bringing forward much-needed investment in our domestic offshore wind supply chains, strengthening our security and creating good jobs for our welders, electricians, and engineers.”