OPITO's Skills Manifesto

OPITO believe that the multi-disciplinary oil and gas workforce will play a crucial role in delivering the goals of the North Sea Transition Deal and will allow us to maintain our position among the world’s leaders in net zero energy. 

The net-zero transition will be one of the dominant labour market trends of the next 30 years and one in five workers in the UK can expect to see demand for their skills increase or decrease over that period as a consequence of this major shift. 

The energy industry is responding to key mega trends including the acceleration of the energy transition, fostering greater energy efficiency, an increased focus on Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) credentials and industry digitisation including automation and artificial intelligence. 

As we accelerate towards net-zero targets and transition away from hydrocarbons, it’s clear that having the right people with the right skills is going to be a major challenge across all energy production sectors. 

We have created this manifesto to present a concerted and unified view to government that we need a flexible and mobile workforce in place that can be deployed across the breadth of energy-related projects as they become more complex. This will be a key enabler in ensuring that the UK can possess and maintain energy security into the future.