2025: A year of regional investment, global confidence and a sharper focus on workforce readiness
By Stephen Marcos Jones, CEO, OPITO
If 2025 showed us anything, it is that the challenge facing the energy workforce has changed. The issue is no longer simply where demand is growing but how effectively skills, competence and assurance frameworks can keep pace with changing regional and operational realities.
As activity becomes more geographically distributed, expectations around safety and regulatory alignment are rising. The focus has shifted from volume to readiness: how quickly skills can be developed, recognised and deployed in ways that support workforce mobility while maintaining confidence, consistency and trust.
For OPITO, 2025 was shaped by these dynamics. It was a year of targeted regional investment and closer collaboration with industry and regulators, reflecting where demand is emerging and how operators expect training to be delivered. In recent years, our international footprint has increased significantly, reflecting growing confidence in globally recognised standards that can be applied locally.
That confidence was reflected in an upward trend in continued engagement with OPITO standards. More than 530,000 learner registrations were delivered globally in 2025, with the strongest growth across the Middle East and Africa, where registrations rose by 21%.
Regional capability, backed by industry
A defining feature of 2025 was the expansion of regional capability with strong industry backing. OPITO expanded its global training network by more than 20 centres, bringing the total to 243 worldwide. This included two new competence management system centres, two qualification centres and 18 standards-aligned training centres. Alongside this, we continued to invest in regional capability, including capacity and headcount growth as we welcome Felipe Santana, Strategic Partnership Manager and Felipe Rodrigues, Senior Strategic Partnership Analyst, to our Centre of Excellence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
What mattered most was not the headline numbers, but the depth of engagement behind them. Strong national operator engagement was a defining driver of progress, backing OPITO standards as the foundation for safe, competent and mobile workforces. From the adoption of iMIST within workforce safety strategies by a national oil company in the Gulf, to the approval of OPITO-aligned training centres supported by national operators in markets such as Angola, these decisions reflect trust in both our standards and delivery model.
This progress marked the first year of OPITO’s three-year strategy, introducing a more regionalised, industry-led operating model built around high-fidelity training. In practice, this has meant working more closely with in-country stakeholders, responding to regional requirements, and keeping standards grounded in real operating needs.
Investing in people as part of our DNA
Alongside standards and delivery, 2025 reinforced something that has always sat at the heart of OPITO: social value and long-term workforce development. This year, 31 new apprentices from our APTUS programme began training, 58 completed the programme and 53 continued with sponsor companies. These are modest numbers, but they demonstrate the role structured training can play in progression, retention and long-term workforce resilience.
That focus also extends earlier into the talent pipeline. Throughout the year, OPITO supported STEM and education initiatives in classrooms and through international youth engagement, helping to widen access to future energy careers in established markets such as the UK, as well as in Australia, China and the US.
Looking ahead to 2026, access to training that is inclusive, credible and regionally relevant remains a priority. The task now is to translate regional investment, industry confidence and standards development into day-to-day workforce readiness, ensuring people can move where work is needed, safely and without unnecessary barriers.
