Scotland’s National Energy Skills Accelerator (NESA) is on track to support over 700 individuals access fully funded places on energy transition focused courses during 2023/24.
Nearly half of the courses have been newly developed and designed to align with industry’s energy transition requirements.
In addition, NESA will launch a pilot web-based energy career pathways tool later this month.
This tool will allow individuals to visualise their own route into an energy career and highlight the different pathways and training available.
The pathways tool is being launched with support from the Scottish Funding Council’s Regional Pathfinder initiative.
NESA was established in Aberdeen in July 2021 to prepare the workforce for the energy transition and to provide access to new skills and capabilities required for delivering the net zero agenda.
NESA is a collaboration between Robert Gordon University, the University of Aberdeen and the North East of Scotland College and is supported by key regional partners, including Energy Transition Zone Ltd and Skills Development Scotland.
Just transition fund
The group’s Just Transition Fund (JTF) for the North East and Moray has suffered from budgets cuts since it was announced. The 10-year £500 million scheme saw £20m allocated for its first year, 2022-23, rising to £50, in 2023-24.
However, the Scottish budget for 2024-25 cut the amount of money the fund will receive by 75% to £12m.
Later, First Minister Humza Yousaf announced an additional £25m to support the oil and gas transition.
An appeal to the UK Government for funds to match the Scottish Government’s £500m pledge failed to bring in additional funds to help people into energy transition courses.
NESA hosted Scotland’s Minister for Energy, Just Transition and Fair Work Gillian Martin in Aberdeen to discuss the success of NESA’s of the JTF project.
She said: “The Scottish Government has provided £1m towards NESA’s pilot energy skills programme, supporting hundreds of people access free training courses to transition to new careers in renewables. It was great to see how successful this pilot has been.
Professor Paul de Leeuw, Chair of the NESA Board said: “NESA has made huge strides in energy skills development since its beginnings in 2021. We have been absolutely delighted with the funding from the Just Transition Fund and to see the huge uptake from over 700 professionals for transition training during 2023/24 on over 37 energy course and programmes.
“We are now looking forward to building on this positive momentum and funding to play our part in setting the future energy workforce up for success throughout 2024/25 and beyond.”
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