The oil and gas industry’s first education summit took place yesterday in Aberdeen, looking at how the industry can engage with schoolchildren across the country to help combat skill shortages.
The North Sea’s thriving energy sector is giving oil and gas firms a headache over finding new staff.
Those with the right qualifications can command higher salaries and this has created a cycle of wage inflation.
Energy skills body Opito has described the skills shortage as “the biggest challenge for the sector”, with up to 15,000 people needed in the industry in the next five to 10 years.
Oil firms, which have spent millions of pounds over the years on initiatives to attract youngsters to the sector, used the summit to study ways to co-ordinate their work.
Alix Thom, skills and employment issues manager at summit organiser Oil & Gas UK, said the most pressing gap facing the industry was the mid-career skills shortage, but looking forward to the next generation was also essential.
She said: “We are looking at how we can link up all the great work that’s being done (with schools).”
Firms like BP, which has around 100 staff linked up with more than 50 schools across the north-east, has been running its own individual outreach projects until now.
Katy Heidenreich, account manager at Schlumberger, which also runs its own projects, said there was a huge appetite in the industry to co-ordinate work.
She said: “We are passionate about collaboration.
“It’s not about throwing money at schools or colleges that are underfunded, but looking at how we can engage with young people.”
Organisations from outside the industry, such as the Glasgow Science Centre, also attended yesterday with a view to participation. Stephen Breslin, chief executive of the Glasgow centre, said: “It can be confusing for schools to deal with all the different initiatives. We are trying to get the industry under one roof to make sure we can enthuse young people and develop the skills that we’ll need to ‘keep the lights on’ in the future.” The centre has run a successful outreach project to promote life sciences to 230,000 schoolchildren across Scotland.
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