News that Aberdeen – known as the oil & gas capital of Europe – is in threat of losing its world-wide status if it does not increase its oil and gas workforce means oil companies must look beyond oil and gas engineers to recruit.
A report by accountancy firm PwC suggests a shortage of skilled workers could threaten Aberdeen’s aim to position itself as a global energy hub and that 120,000 new recruits are required to replace its depleting workforce – almost 50% of whom are over 45 years old. This comes as the Chancellor’s announcement for tax breaks for older North Sea oil and gas fields is published today.
Keith Lewis, managing director of Matchtech – the UK’s leading recruiter in the engineering space, with more than 28 years’ experience and over 200,000 engineers on its in-house database – said “The simple fact is there just aren’t enough engineers with oil and gas experience to fulfil this demand. Putting this into perspective, there are only 20,000 oil and gas engineers out there in employment – of which only 48% work in Aberdeen.
“In order to meet this demand, the city must attract more than 12 times its current number of employees in only 10 years. To say this is a challenge is an understatement.
“Oil companies must look beyond the current crop of oil and gas engineers and begin to embrace those from other industry sectors and now, with the Chancellor’s latest announcement today, is the best time to do this…”
