by David Thomson, Chief Executive of Shetland Aerogenerators Ltd
It’s probably a sign of something when the oil and gas industry and the renewables sector are holding hands. At the recent celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Sullom Voe Oil Terminal being built, everyone involved emphasised how it had been an opportunity for employment, indeed careers for local people. Many of those who’ve benefited from those opportunities were in the audience. EnQuest Managing Director Steve Bowyer and SIC Councillor Andrea Manson both highlighted the ever-nearing transition to clean energy as critical to continuing such opportunities. While rightly focused on the community’s involvement throughout the history of the terminal, there was a recurring refrain of the oil industry welcoming the net zero future.
At the same time last week the trade body Scottish Renewables perhaps surprisingly leapt to the support of oil and gas businesses, calling upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reform the windfall tax to protect investment in the North Sea. The urgency of our climate breakdown has been highlighted at COP30 in Brazil this week lending weight to the many voices calling for the Government to stop licencing fossil fuel projects and start ending our crippling dependency on burning dinosaur remnants. However, even the most vociferous Just Stop Oil campaigners admit that we’re at least going to have to wind down the existing infrastructure. Without going as far as ‘drill-baby-drill’, renewable energy leaders wrote to support slowing the pace of decline in North Sea oil and gas while speeding up the deployment of renewables.
The common thread within both these items was jobs. The risks of losing an existing skilled workforce; the challenges trying to find and fill new posts; and the opportunity to use the former to meet the latter. A Just Transition. But that might not be enough in Shetland. It’s hard to miss that local businesses are struggling to find staff. There are serious challenges for important local services. It’s almost as if Shetland doesn’t have enough working people. We need more.
The numerous major energy projects reported [in these very pages] worry many but do represent an opportunity for new jobs that other regions already envy. Quite reasonably the community is questioning the balance of costs and benefits. Of gains and losses. Of desirable economic activity or industrialisation. We can sell how wonderful Shetland is for visitors but people need good jobs to actually live here. We could cease all energy development but when they start shuttering Sullom Voe Terminal then we might have bigger problems than the view. Grangemouth anyone?
We can argue about the precise extent but Shetland needs the energy transition. We arguably don’t have a choice and need now to recognise the importance of planning ahead to have enough clean energy roles locally to give options for the declining oil and gas sector and to offer more of the types of skilled trades and professional positions that people and families living here can build lives around. The thing that’s going to keep school-leavers living in or returning to Shetland is tangible pathways from entry level to skilled worker to supervisor to professional to advisor. Once we have clear policy signals for what’s going to be developed around Shetland then that allows our local businesses and supply chain to invest in hiring for the future. Apprenticeships will be the critical pathway. Plenty of local firms give, or want to give, chances to local youngsters. Plenty of local firms are also using temporary incoming workers. That’s fine too but it could be even better if we can get those workers to stay and bring their families here as well.
Back in the museum for the fiftieth anniversary event, sitting alongside locals who jumped at the chance to get jobs at Sullom Voe were many who came north for a project but ended up settling. Another important way to address the skills gap will be by supporting women to join the workforce in different capacities. The energy sector is still male-dominated and fixing that will take intervention. Encouraging the uptake of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects, providing funding for professional development training for women, and ensuring inclusive work environments will be required so that more women gain the relevant skills for Shetland’s clean energy jobs.
In fairness, bodies such as Highlands and Islands Enterprise are undertaking considerable work to examine local capability and identify gaps where support for apprentices or women could help. There are now national plans for jobs in renewables and the energy transition. When coordinated, these together should help that local planning I mentioned. Local businesses are vital to the challenge. Members of the Shetland Net Zero Energy Forum are particularly engaged but are not alone in giving attention to every stage of learning including the earliest stages of skills support. From site visits to schools engagement to tertiary input for our sector.
The Careers Fair remains an annual highpoint for many. As if last week didn’t have enough going on, my company supported the delivery of the second year of the reintroduced Shetland Science Fair for all of Shetland’s secondary one and two pupils plus many of the secondary threes. Some 650 local pupils getting encouragement to develop the skills that could eventually lead to qualifications or trades that could then meet the jobs that Shetland desperately needs to remain sustainable.
If we get this right then in fifty years from now there’ll be events in the museum discussing how Shetland transitioned from oil and gas to renewables and clean energies and how the community continued to take the opportunities created.