National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers
Scottish governments, amongst our contractor members during the pandemic.
This is vital context to the debate about the transition to the low carbon or clean energy sector. We are committed to working to end the precariousness and weaknesses in the current offshore contractor model and note that employers are lobbying to convince government and UK parliaments that 3-week on 3-week off shift patterns are the industry standard in the offshore oil and gas sector and, as such, it represents a ‘just transition’ selling point for our members.4
OEUK’s emphasis on the contractor model, including the development of an ‘alliancing model’ for the energy transition will have a significant impact on offshore oil and gas members and in the supply chain. The position of our catering members in the COTA agreement needs particularly urgent attention, as their skills are not needed in the offshore wind sector, for example, as their engineering grade colleagues.
We raise this at the outset of the consultation response because 3-on 3-off and any other shift patterns in oil and gas and renewables must be agreed through collective bargaining agreements and not imposed unilaterally by employers. This applies to existing collective bargaining agreements between trade unions and employers in the oil and gas sector including the Energy Services Agreement5 (ESA) covering nearly 10,000 offshore oil and gas contractors and the COTA agreement6 for 3,000 catering grades on oil and gas installations on the UKCS. RMT, Unite and GMB are the signatory unions to the ESA agreement with 17 contractor companies and RMT and Unite are the signatory unions to the 6 offshore catering contractor companies.
Robert Gordon University (RGU) estimate that the direct and indirect oil and gas workforce will decline from 120,000 in 2023 to between 60,000-87,000 in 2030. At the same time, the offshore renewables workforce, which includes offshore wind, CCS, and hydrogen, could increase to between 70,000 and 138,000 in 2030, subject to realised deployment across those technologies and the previous government’s voluntary approach to ‘local content’ targets across offshore wind, decommissioning, CCS and other sectors of the clean energy sector will not maximise the economic benefit to UK workers or to the government’s growth targets.
Similarly, energy system change organisation Systemiq published a report earlier this year with the finding that a net increase of around 40,000 jobs (using the total employed figure of 210,000 for 2024) was possible in the offshore energy sector by 2030.
“If the UK successfully meets its renewable energy targets (including both offshore wind and CCS scale up) and develops a robust decommissioning industry, total UKCS energy system jobs could potentially increase to around 250,000 by 2030.” 7
At the same time, findings from RGU’s 2021 review showed that over 90% of the UK’s oil and gas workforce have medium to high skills transferability and are well positioned to work in adjacent energy sectors, reiterating the significant opportunity to deliver a managed transition for the sector’s workforce.
4 North Sea Oil & Gas Workers: Transitional Support Hansard 23 April 2025, Col 402WH.
5 https://oeuk.org.uk/industry-support/energy-services-agreement/
6 https://www.cota.org.uk/
7 Pg 7 Deliveringarapid,orderlyandjustenergytransitionfortheUKContinentalShelf, Systemiq Feb 2025.
As our members at the forefront of the transition are telling us, RMT believe that the policies adopted by GB Energy and the Crown Estates must go further than equity stakes in offshore wind and other clean energy projects. Full public ownership should be an explicit aim of state-owned energy production in oil and gas and in clean energy industries. This would also prevent premature decommissioning of offshore oil and gas production facilities in the North Sea, a prospect that has increased with the aggressive use of tariffs adopted by the USA since January.
At a national level, the Clean Industry Bonus needs to be re-focused on immediate interventions, including in the supply chain of offshore wind and CCUS projects already leased by Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland, consented by government and those subject to a Contract for Difference (CfD).
On CfD’s it is completely unacceptable for the strike price agreed to increase when a project is overdue and late – there is no mechanism to secure good labour market practices and conditions, yet the strike price can be upped under long standing agreements between the developer and the Low Carbon Contracts Company. We have seen this on the Neart na Gaoithe and other offshore wind projects in waters around the UK.
Government also needs to focus on clean energy workers being directly employed and we look forward to the publication of the UK Government’s Clean Energy Workforce Strategy in the summer.
In 2023, Robert Gordon University reported that “The current level of UK content for capital activities [in the offshore energy sector] is typically less than 35%.”8 The previous government’s approach of voluntary ‘UK/local content’ targets in the offshore wind sector deal (60%), the North Sea Transition Deal (50%, including decommissioning) and the Carbon Capture and Storage sector (50%) is not working and will not deliver the higher proportion of clean energy jobs, particularly in offshore or maritime supply chain roles, that need to be provided in working class communities on the north east coast of Scotland and across the UK.
Stronger regulation and pro-employment conditions, including sectoral collective bargaining would deliver this and RMT urge the government to introduce these reforms alongside measures to re-build domestic manufacturing capacity.
GB Energy has a role to play in setting the strategic direction and in mandating a plan for a just transition for offshore oil and gas workers, including those in catering grades on offshore platforms.
Training standards also need to avoid duplication of cost and qualifications which is still a major barrier to oil and gas workers moving into the clean energy sector. The Spending Review outcome later this year must support an expanded funding settlement for a retraining scheme for offshore oil and gas worker, who are increasingly sceptical over the prospect of a ‘just’ transition, as the average age of an offshore oil and gas worker in the North Sea approaches fifty years. We cannot afford to lose their skills and expertise.
8 Pg. 5 RGU PoweringUptheWorkforceSeptember 2023.
The Connected Competencies scheme operated by the Engineering and Construction Industry Training Board is stabilising and increasing employment of core roles in the offshore oil and gas sector, including welders and pipe fitters. The offshore unions, including RMT support this initiative and point to the increased funding levels provided for permanent and temporary9 staff in key engineering and construction roles.
We would also note that the offshore oil and gas industry does still take on apprentices, through the APTUS Apprenticeship Scheme – which covers Maintenance and Process Technicians (previously known as the OGTAP Scheme). There are 251 apprentices in various different stages of the four-year scheme at present, according to correspondence between the RMT and OEUK. These workers must have the confidence of sectoral collective bargaining, in order to ensure that they pursue a long and rewarding career in the offshore energy sector and are not poached by other sectors with shortages in those skills, such as construction and nuclear.
The shortage of UK seafarers also needs to be addressed and measures such as the Tonnage Tax should be reformed to stimulate the training, recruitment and retention of UK resident seafarers in deck, engine, catering and onboard service roles.
To broaden this important point, the maritime supply chain will support a growing number of seafarer jobs, from catering Ratings to Bosuns on the diverse range of ships that will transport and accommodate the industrial personnel required at every stage in the developmental and operational life of an offshore wind turbine through to decommissioning.
Yet developers can cut costs off the backs of seafarers in what is a complex supply chain. Primarily, because the UK NMW, currently £12.21 per hour for over 21-year olds, does not apply if the site is over 12 miles from the coast line. The majority of fixed and floating offshore wind turbines planned, leased and licenced will be constructed, installed, operated, maintained and decommissioned in waters over 20 miles from the UK coastline.
GB Energy’s five key functions include building supply chains across the UK, boosting energy independence and creating jobs. It is imperative that we apply this to the seafarer supply chain. At present there are under 10,000 UK resident Ratings accounting for 7% of the total number of seafarer Ratings jobs in the UK shipping industry in 2024.10 The number of Ratings jobs in the UK shipping industry has grown from 50,380 in 2019 to over 135,000 in 2024.11
The reasons why this massive increase in jobs has not registered anywhere, even after the P&O Ferries scandal, is partly because the UK government data is collected from the UK Chamber of Shipping membership and partly because the vast majority of these jobs are filled by seafarers from non-EEA countries on agency contracts working regularly in the UK economy but on ships registered on flags of convenience, particularly Cyprus, Panama, Bahamas, Marshall Islands, Malta and Liberia, on pay and conditions that bare little relation to the UK economy. This must change as part of the North Sea energy transition, where the growth in shipping activity will be massive.
RMT support sustainable policies that create more seafarer training and jobs from this
9 https://www.ecitb.org.uk/news/funding-boost-for-connected-competence-temporary-worker-tests/
10 See CHART 9 Seafarers in the UK Shipping Industry: 2024 DfT Feb 2025.
11 Table SFR0303 Seafarers in the UK Shipping Industry: 2024 DfT Feb 2025.
Decommissioning capacity in UK ports. There is an approaching cliff edge in the scrapping of merchant vessels that should also support investment in the growing decommissioning and ship recycling sector which would sustain jobs and investment for the long term, including in remote ports subject to public support, such as Ardersier.
More broadly, the manufacturing supply chain in the UK. The majority of jobs in an offshore wind farm (fixed or floating) are supported at the component manufacturing, construction and installation phases. The present system of leasing, licensing, contracting and subcontracting offshore wind farms in the UK is practically unregulated, from an employment and worker perspective exploitative practices can be found in any supply chain or any UK renewables port. As a result, the countries of the UK have lost out on vital jobs and entire supply chains in the 20 years it has taken to deliver nearly 15GW of installed offshore wind capacity, the second highest total in the world after China.
For example, the 882MW Moray West offshore wind being developed by private Spanish company EDP Renewables and Ireland’s state owned energy company ESB. The 60 fixed bottom Siemens Gamesa turbines will produce enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes in the east of Scotland. We welcome the 1,500 jobs created in the construction phase, mainly at the Siemens Gamesea plant on Humberside, in the Ports of Cromarty and Nigg and on Tyneside and Teesside where the array cables were manufactured but this is still below even the voluntary 60% ‘local content’ target set by the previous government for offshore wind projects.
The Moray West turbine towers, transition pieces, jackets, foundations and substation foundations were manufactured in the United Arab Emirates by Lamprell and Dajin Heavy Industries in China, with the products finished by companies in Spain. The installation was completed by the DEME Group from Belgium, and the Danish Cadeler Group’s vessels were chartered to lift the components into place.
We note concerns over ‘forced labour’ in the solar panel supply chain and would also raise concerns over the lack of basic rights for workers in the offshore wind supply chain. Lamprell, for example, has historic and live contracts with RWE, SSE Renewables, Equinor, Scottish Power Renewables in the UK offshore wind sector for the key components in hundreds of turbines that will power the offshore wind energy in the UK North Sea for decades. Lamprell employ over 6,000 workers, mainly at their facilities in the UAE, where freedom of association, trade union collective bargaining and other core ILO workers’ rights are prohibited along with the right to take industrial action, not to mention a wide range of basic protections from employment discrimination amongst women workers.15
There is also well documented seafarer exploitation in the maritime supply chain, particularly at heavy lift companies. The number of these vessels globally is also too low to accommodate the international expansion in offshore wind power and carbon capture and storage. The previous government amended National Minimum Wage legislation in October 2020 to extend entitlement to the UK NMW rates to seafarers on domestic routes and routes from UK ports to offshore oil and gas installations on the UK Continental Shelf but refused to extend that entitlement to seafarers working in the offshore wind supply chain over 12
15 International Trade Union Confederation – Global Rights Index, United Arab Emirates
As an island nation there are many locations but Scotland offers some of the best opportunities in offshore wind (fixed and floating) and accounts for a disproportionate number of the current oil and gas jobs affected by the transition.
We have seen mix of public and private investment to take advantage of clean energy opportunities in locations across the UK in recent years, including Aberdeen, Leith, Port of Moray Firth, Blyth, Teesside, Hull, Immingham, Grimsby, Great Yarmouth, Harwich, Tilbury, Ramsgate, Newhaven, Portsmouth, Southampton, Plymouth, Newport, Port Talbot, Milford Haven, Holyhead, Mostyn, Liverpool, Heysham and Barrow.
As a principle, clean energy investment opportunities must support conditional targets for training and employing local workers, covered by collective bargaining agreements. This is especially important for the locations that align with Freeports in England and Wales and Green Freeport sites in Scotland.
Question 2: What, if any, additional measures could help the oil and gas workforce to transition into a) clean energy and b) other industrial strategy sectors?
The oil and gas workforce require a raft of additional measures to aid transition into the clean energy sector and other industrial strategy sectors.
On other industrial strategy sectors, the pathway to alternative work on the same pay for offshore catering workers is a pressing priority. 3,000 North Sea workers in catering grades are covered by the COTA agreement with the RMT and Unite. The five employers in the COTA agreement are not obliged to plan for a transition of their staff who are the lowest paid members of the offshore oil and gas workforce but have significant safety duties, including helipad operations and are trained to the same basic standard as every other offshore worker.
Sectoral collective bargaining rights for trade unions would protect pay and conditions for offshore oil and gas workers transitioning to the clean energy sector and provide for improvements, including for those oil and gas workers that will remain working to produce oil and gas over the decades to come. Robert Gordon University estimate that there will be over 87,000 jobs directly and indirectly supported by North Sea oil and gas by 2030, down from 120,000 in 2023. This is based on industry decommissioning plans in 2022 and other factors. Geo-political factors may make this transition even more fraught for offshore oil and gas workers, as the negative effect of President Trump’s trade war on forecasts for the price of oil over the next two years clearly demonstrate.
The closure of Grangemouth is a national failure on many levels. We are concerned by the potential precedent which this sets for energy transition, given the involvement of a prominent tax exile and their state-owned partner in China. It is also important to point out that whilst the Prime Minister was keen to stress the 18-months on full pay that ‘every worker made redundant at Grangemouth’ would receive,18 this option does not exist for the majority of offshore oil and gas workers as they are contractors not directly employed by duty holders in the North Sea and are only entitled to statutory redundancy which is capped.
18 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g0xnnwkppo
We welcome the dialogue we have had to date with the Office for Clean Energy Jobs regarding this section of clean energy workers.
For example, most of the offshore wind farms that are leased for meeting the 2030 50GW production target will require floating accommodation vessels during the construction, installation, operation and maintenance and decommissioning phases. This is a major source of maritime job creation on the UKCS and they must be covered by sectoral collective bargaining agreements and linked to increased training opportunities for UK resident Ratings.
Question 3d: What, if any, other key occupations not already listed could oil and gas workers transition into that you think are important to supporting the transition to a low carbon economy?
Crane operators and many other grades within the offshore sector could transition into shipping, as many may have started off in the shipping sector, but this would not be seen as an option given the exploitative practices within shipping around the UK coast.
Question 3e: Do you think the UK has a sufficient skills base to underpin the transition? What role will the oil and gas sector play in the availability of critical skills?
The offshore oil and gas sector has an essential role to play but it needs to conduct this through a plan developed in dialogue with the offshore trade unions and other stakeholders
The four offshore wind occupations identified in the offshore skills passport are a start, alongside those listed in the consultation document. These are relatively high skilled jobs and actual construction jobs (in addition to ‘construction management’) such as scaffolders, crane operators and workers on drilling rigs which are all jobs that will continue in the clean energy sector.
Question 4a: How can government and industry develop the skills passport into a meaningful and effective mechanism for workers to transition from oil and gas into other industries? What is the correct role for industry and government to make this happen?
The Passport has to be underpinned by re-training funding and linked to the outcome of the 1-year pilot of regional skills funds, particularly in Aberdeen and Scotland but rolled out to cover offshore oil and gas workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The regional skills pilot will provide £900,000 for the annual pilot. That is not enough money to keep up with the rate of redundancies which RMT and Unite are currently dealing with amongst contractors covered by the Energy Skills Agreement.
The 3,000 offshore caterers working for the five (since Entier was bought out by Aramark) companies covered by the COTA agreement with RMT and Unite also need particular protection in the form of funded re-training to other sectors of the clean energy industry, particularly the maritime supply chain. Offshore caterers do not have a clear skills pathway to jobs in offshore wind, unlike members in the ESA, so the position of offshore caterers needs urgent attention.
Chain 2025 report does not even mention any progress in creating supply chain jobs in the clean energy sector since this target was set four years ago and does not even mention the NSTD target.
Question 7c: What additional measures can we take to support these supply chains during the transition?
Ensure that the ‘Supply Chain Champion’ selected by employers consults offshore trade unions, the TUC, STUC and Wales TUC and is required to promote trade union recognition in the supply chain for clean energy industries.
Question 7d: What are the current existing key strengths in the UK supply chains for these sectors?
Question 7e: Do you think that UK supply chain companies will be competitive in accessing growing clean energy sectors in the North Sea? What role can government play in supporting them?
Question 7f: What key export opportunities do you anticipate will be open to the UK supply chain, as a result of the development of clean energy sectors in the North Sea?
Question 7g: Where do you see the main opportunities in a) offshore wind b) floating offshore wind, c) CCUS (T&S) d) hydrogen e) decommissioning for the oil and gas supply chain?
Question 8: How can we improve our understanding of the interconnected basin, including its opportunities and risks? Do you have any evidence you can share about this?
From the perspective of workers and their trade unions, the interconnectedness of the energy transition must also be planned for. For example, collective agreements covering the oil and gas workforce are a template for collective agreements in the renewable sector, as stated in the introduction to the Energy Services Agreement on the OEUK website:
“The Energy Services Agreement (ESA) is a collective bargaining agreement developed through collaboration between employer signatories, trade unions, and workforce representatives.
“It aims to future-proof the UK Continental Shelf’s energy industry as it transitions to a net-zero environment, by establishing minimum employment standards for supply chain companies.
“The ESA covers fair, equitable, and transparent minimum base rates of pay, related allowances, working hours, and holiday entitlement across energy services companies. It ensures that terms of employment are no less than the minimum standards set within the agreement.” 23
Question 9: How can we manage future oil and gas production from existing fields, in a
23 https://oeuk.org.uk/industry-support/energy-services-agreement/
Sub-objectives to guide the work of the NSTA would be more effective in securing the structural reform need to extend sectoral collective bargaining rights and basic employment rights into the UKCS and Renewable Energy Zones where new offshore clean energy projects are designated in line wit UK safety law but are not fully aligned with the employment rights framework.
Question 14a: What are your views on the ideas for reforms to the NSTA’s powers considered above?
Question14b: In addition to those explored above, are there any other areas of the NSTA’s powers which could benefit from reforms?
Annex A
Comparison between rates of pay for offshore oil and gas workers covered by the Energy Services Agreement and reported pay in the wind industry24
1 – Crane Mechanic, Electrical and other Technicians, Plant Operatives, Marine Cargo Handler
2 – Advance Scaffolder, MultiCoded Welder
3 – Electrician, Pipe Fitter, Scaffolder, Welder, Joiner, Rigger, Crane Operator, Helideck Landing Officer
4 – Painter/Blaster, Cleaner, Asbestos Remover, radio Operator, Helideck Attendant, Deck Operator
5 – General Assistant
24 Based on figures in Clean energy job adverts analysis – charts and methodology (Excel) DESNEZ, 13 December 2024.
25 Based on working 189 days offshore per year.
26 The average annual pay quoted for the wind sector in DESNEZ publication 13 Dec 2024