Are we entering a new boom era for Scottish Energy?
Since the war in Ukraine began, the exposure the UK has regarding energy has become ever more clear. The move to renewable energy sources is admirable, equally the challenge has been the seasonality leading to surges and shortfalls, where the steps the Government have taken to resolve this are starting to manifest, with jobs in Energy in Scotland now hitting record levels.
Policies such as allowing for new drilling licenses for oil & gas, along with further investment into offshore wind farms have led to a surge of jobs in the industry across the nation, and such is the strategic importance of Scotland to the national energy strategy, that the British Government have now announced plans to relocate more than 200 jobs from London to Aberdeen, within the department for Energy Security and Net Zero. The thinking of this being, to add another layer to the governmental ecosystem, to enable fast track decision-making and accelerate investment further.
This transition in Scotland away from Oil & Gas towards renewable energy is an issue that has been touched upon on a report by the Robert Gordon University and their insight is that whilst jobs in traditional rigs are in decline, they can be more than off-set with a smart investment strategy. In fact, jobs could even increase by 50% or more. However, at the moment, investment at the scale needed is still yet to happen and at a recent auction, there was not a single bid to supply the government at the energy price it wanted to pay. The capital expenditure needed to invest into a new phase is a significant amount and the current Government seems to expect the private sector to pick up the tab, without paying a market price.
This leads into the question of what next? Kier Starmer has made commitments about cleantech including creating a publicly owned entity, called Great British Energy, which would be based in Scotland. No doubt therefore if Labour win the election, the boom we are starting to see in jobs in Energy in Scotland will only continue, where as this entity would go live, it would likely trigger a wave of jobs all around amongst the local supply chain.
And what is the end goal? For context, the UK pays significantly more for its energy than other G8 countries. Similarly, energy costs as a proportion of household spending in the UK are also disproportionately high compared to other countries which directly feeds in to the cost of living debate. So this kind of investment could lead to long term energy prices coming down by up to 50%, with hundreds of thousands of jobs created in Scotland along the way. The beginning of a new boom era for Scottish energy therefore?
The data referenced above has been sourced from Vacancy Analytics, a cutting-edge Business Intelligence tool that tracks recruitment industry trends and identifies emerging hotspots. With 17 years of experience, we have a deep understanding of market activities in the UK and globally.
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