Oil and gas contractors can help to ease the acute shortage of onshore workers in key areas identified by the 2014 Oil & Gas UK Economic Report. Contractors also have a role to play in improving productivity in the North Sea, as spiralling costs threaten investment.
According to Oil & Gas UK: “Operators and contractors alike continue to cite shortages of adequately skilled people as the foremost challenge facing the industry. The intensity of activity on the UKCS, international competition for talent and current immigration policies have combined to exacerbate these shortages.”
ContractorCalculator CEO Dave Chaplin believes that contingent-based workers such as contractors are just what the industry needs: “When there are just not enough workers to go around, contractors are able to rapidly switch from project to project minimising downtime and maximising the uptime when their valuable skills are being used.”
The report cites multiple strategies that are being adopted to ease the skills shortage that include increasing entry level recruitment and retraining candidates from other sectors. However, in some skills areas, where industry experience is vital, there are simply not enough suitably skilled workers available.
Oil & Gas UK explains: “The critical area of shortage remains in mid-career personnel in a number of onshore roles, including project management, design, subsea and drilling engineering, and geosciences.”
These roles offer a checklist of potential contract assignments for oil and gas contractors with those skills to find their next contract. This checklist of hard to source skills could also motivate suitably skilled employees to go contracting, as they can expect a steady stream of highly paid contracts from day one.
Oil & Gas UK also highlights that there are contracts to be found throughout the UK, although they are also concentrated in specific areas. In addition to Europe’s oil and gas capital Aberdeen, and the north east of Scotland, contractors will find new contracts concentrated in London and the south east of England, East Anglia and the north east.