Skills shortage ‘biggest challenge’ for oil & gas jobs boom
4 March 2013
A new report from Lloyds Banking Group suggests that up to 34,000 new jobs could be created in oil & gas firms in the UK in the next two years, but skills shortages will make expansion difficult.
Mon, 4 Feb 2013A new report from Lloyds Banking Group suggests that up to 34,000 new jobs could be created in oil & gas firms in the UK in the next two years, but skills shortages will make expansion difficult.
It will come as no surprise to those involved in recruitment that skills shortage will be an obstacle to growth, but significantly, a third of companies name it as their biggest challenge, making it the largest obstacle on the horizon.
As Recruiter found last year (See Sector Focus, Recruiter, December 2012), there are signs that companies are beginning to invest in training and alternative talent sources, as reported by the Lloyds survey.
The survey also showed that 77% of industry firms were planning for growth in 2013-14, with Scottish firms marginally more optimistic (83%) than companies elsewhere.
Paul Flynn, managing director of energy recruitment specialist Earthstaff, says: “There needs to be a long-term plan in place to ensure the best talent is cultivated and kept within the UK to provide the calibre of people required to compete on a global scale.
“It also needs to raise the identity of engineering within the UK and ensure that its importance and credibility cascades down to grass roots level, so that when a child starts school, instead of wanting to be like Alan Sugar, they are talking about Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Sir James Dyson and James Watt.”
As reported by recruiter.co.uk in January, Dyson himself has expressed concerns that UK graduates are too easily “distracted by the glamour of web fads and video gaming” and less likely to become involved in heavier industry.
It will come as no surprise to those involved in recruitment that skills shortage will be an obstacle to growth, but significantly, a third of companies name it as their biggest challenge, making it the largest obstacle on the horizon.
As Recruiter found last year (See Sector Focus, Recruiter, December 2012), there are signs that companies are beginning to invest in training and alternative talent sources, as reported by the Lloyds survey.
The survey also showed that 77% of industry firms were planning for growth in 2013-14, with Scottish firms marginally more optimistic (83%) than companies elsewhere.
Paul Flynn, managing director of energy recruitment specialist Earthstaff, says: “There needs to be a long-term plan in place to ensure the best talent is cultivated and kept within the UK to provide the calibre of people required to compete on a global scale.
“It also needs to raise the identity of engineering within the UK and ensure that its importance and credibility cascades down to grass roots level, so that when a child starts school, instead of wanting to be like Alan Sugar, they are talking about Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Sir James Dyson and James Watt.”
As reported by recruiter.co.uk in January, Dyson himself has expressed concerns that UK graduates are too easily “distracted by the glamour of web fads and video gaming” and less likely to become involved in heavier industry.
