Winds of change blow through Scotland's energy jobs

Forty miles away on the Fife coast at Methil, management and workers at a Harland & Wolff marine engineering yard gathered in hard hats to hear speeches marking the landmark rescue in December of the Belfast-based ship-building group that was made famous by the Titanic.

Its new owner, a Spanish marine, defence and renewables company called Navantia, last month completed the acquisition of Methil as part of a UK government-brokered deal that includes other Harland & Wolff sites at Arnish in Scotland, and Appledore and Belfast. The move saved 1,000 jobs.

The hope is that Methil, perched on a deepwater estuary in the Firth of Forth, can use its expertise in building components for oil and gas rigs and offshore wind farms to ramp up the UK’s ambitious plans for renewable energy to replace gas as electrification of power accelerates.

“We are a critical point in the development of Scotland’s offshore energy capacity and just off the coast here we will have some of the greatest economic opportunities that will secure [our] energy future while enabling us to create secure employment in these communities,” First Minister John Swinney declared.

The big unknown is the pace at which the workforce in Scottish oil and gas can switch from fossil fuels to renewables, giving wind farm developers in the North Sea confidence about the supply chain needed to back up their investments.

Paul de Leeuw, director of the Energy Transition Institute at Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University, told a Scottish Affairs Committee parliamentary hearing last month that up to 90 per cent of skills in Scotland’s oil and gas workforce are transferable. The issue was achieving a “Goldilocks zone” between now and 2030 with people making the transition in sufficient numbers to ensure “orderly, managed decline” in the North Sea while guaranteeing enough supply of skills to accelerate renewables.

Last month, the Scottish government launched an industry-led “energy skills passport” pilot scheme, backed by £3.7 million in public funding. It will help oil and gas workers identify routes into roles in offshore wind.

Matt Smith, general manager of Harland & Wolff’s Methil yard, says that “synergies” with Navantia’s renewables division will help. Almost 50 apprentices are already being trained in new skills.

“We are geographically better placed than just about any yard in the UK for the future of offshore wind in Scotland. As long as we can secure our share of work there’s no reason why we can’t have a long and healthy future,” he said. “And that’s what it’s about: making sure that the apprentices here have 40 years in front of them, if that’s what they want.”

Jeremy Grant is a freelance writer and was a journalist at the Financial Times and Reuters for 25 years.