Mark-Owen Lloyd’s gaffe last week proves that profiteering in a consumer industry doesn’t go down well during a credit crunch. But the E.On head of power trading has a good point. It is a pretty robust industry that can thrive in these tough economic times.
Over the last few months we’ve started to work with an increasing number of clients in the oil and gas industry. So we thought this week we would run a series of sector spotlights looking at what is happening to recruitment in the industry, with the hope that we can learn from our clients and candidates own insight into the market.
According to Oil & Gas UK’s 2008 Economic Report, total employment in the industry is up 30% from 2004. The vast majority of the 450,000 UK residents working in the sector are employed within the wider supply chain. However, the number employed directly by gas and oil companies is on the up, and we feel this reflects an increasingly strategic outlook. These businesses are exploring new sources of energy and planning how they can build on recent success, and they need bright analytical people to support their endeavors.
In 2002 the Upstream Technician Training Scheme was launched with the intention of training and developing the next generation of process and maintenance technicians. It has been an outstanding success, with a 96% completion rate at the end of the three and a half year course. But looking forwards, a new skills gap is opening. Rather than technical skills, tactical planning will make or break the industry once oil and gas prices stabilize and natural resources begin to wane. On the crest of their current extraordinary success, the oil and gas industry needs to be looking not one or two, but fifty years forwards.
I would hugely value your opinion of what lies in store for the oil and gas industry. And keep an eye on this blog over the next five days for more insight into our experiences of working within the sector.
A brief synopsis of Oil & Gas UK’s 2008 Economic Report
- In 2008 the UK Continental Shelf will produce one billion barrels of oil and gas.
- This should meet all of the UK’s oil demand and 70-75% of gas demand.
- The industry has provided employment for 450,000 people in the UK, generating £21 billion in taxes this year.
- Currently, each £billion spent by the industry provides around 20,000 jobs across the supply chain.
- Somewhere between 16 and 25 billion barrels of oil and gas remain to be recovered from the UKCS.
- At the current level of production that leaves a maximum of 25 years worth of natural resource in the North Sea.
Read more here
About the author
Will Dawson is a Recruitment Consultant in the Executive Hire team at FreshMinds Talent, and is in charge of developing our oil and gas sector offering.
on Sep 15th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
When we talk about growing oil and gas sector it is also important to mention renewable energy sector that has been an offspring to these industries. Moreover the lion’s share of jobs created in this industry and especially nowadays are focused towards this direction. It is not only an expansion of oil demand that has driven the industry but the need to provide alternative energy resources. This is growing trend is not only in UK but also around the world.
on Sep 19th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I agree with Tulkin, not just because the oil & gas industry publicise their renewable portfolio exponentially more then their conventional resources, but the simple fact that ‘he who has the gold makes the rules’. In this respect, its the big multinationals that are very much in control, meaning they are the ones with the capital to invest in alternative sources of energy as the conventional ones ‘wane’ and therefore have large stakes in the future of this sector. The problem is in the article, forward planning is essential to achieving a successful solution, ie to retroplan 50 years forward, requires specific action now, as highlighted by Shell’s very different Blueprint & Scramble scenarios of the next 50 years.
Regardless, of course getting involved within the strategy planning side of the Oil & Gas industry would be exciting although whats scary is that still, these cross generation decisions are being made to benefit shareholders, not the bigger picture.
on Sep 24th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Although I agree with Tulkin’s assessment that renewable energy is becoming more important for Oil & Gas Companies, it is questionable whether renewable energy field requires the same skill set as the one in Oil & Gas. To put it in perspective, Toshiba is manufactures both electronic systems and nuclear power generation systems but the underlying skill set of the workforce required in their production is very different.
I definitely agree that renewable energy sector will become more important whilst we will probably see declining importance of “oil & gas” in Oil & Gas Sector. High oil prices, as it was the case in previous oil shocks, resulted in demand destruction. Consumers are not only using oil ever more sparingly but many other alternatives to oil are appearing to compensate for current high prices. Compounded with the fact that oil resource is mostly located in politically unstable countries such as Iran, Nigeria or Russia, we can expect decreasing importance of the commodity in the longer term. Thus I expect the shift to be towards more alternative energies in the future, benefiting companies such as BP which focuses progressively more on renewable energies. The question is how different skill set will this require from the one currently required in the “traditional” Oil & Gas Sector.
on Sep 10th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
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Cheers! Sandra. R.
on May 11th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Gas prices these days are just getting higher, i think the government should focus more on alternative energy.-”:
on Aug 24th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
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