UK Labour Market Update
The latest labour market data released by the Office for National Statistics show a mixed picture. While the number of employees and earnings are up, the main indicators are not looking so positive – employment is down, unemployment is up and the number of vacancies is down.
Click here for more information.
Gas Networks Workforce Planning Report
During 2023, Energy & Utility Skills, in partnership with the UK’s gas transmission and distribution companies, conducted an industry-level strategic workforce planning exercise. The purpose of the exercise was to benchmark the current workforce against a range of relevant indicators (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity.) and to quantify the industry’s likely demand for people across more than 40 operational/technical job families over the period to 2040.
Gas Industry Horizon Scan “Call to Action”
Energy & Utility Skills is currently conducting a significant programme of research across all of our industries to identify the challenges and opportunities facing their workforces over the next decade – the latest stage of this work focusses exclusively on the gas networks industry.
The first phase is to produce an “Horizon Scan” which will highlight all of the major issues that could affect the people and skills demands of the industry. This report will make evidence-based recommendations as to which specific issues/ challenges should then be the subject of a “skills deep dive”. Ultimately, we are seeking to better understand how the industry can access a safe, skilled and sustainable workforce in new and emerging areas of activity that will be critical to its future.
The “horizon scan” will cover all aspects of gas transmission and distribution, including network operations, maintenance, metering and connections.
Therefore, we are looking to speak to industry representatives (from employers, training providers, industry bodies, etc.) who are willing to contribute their views on the challenges and opportunities facing the gas network workforce over the coming years.
These conversations will take place over MS Teams (or any other platform) and last for around 45 minutes. If you would like to contribute to the research, please contact grace.storey@euskills.co.uk and we will arrange a convenient time to talk.
Shortage Occupation List Update
The Migration Advisory Committee has made its latest set of recommendations to Government on the occupations which should be included on the UK’s Shortage Occupation List (SOL). However, as the criteria for including occupations on the SOL have changed dramatically over recent times, the potential usefulness of it to the energy and utilities sector has diminished substantially – although there are some opportunities to make use of the SOL in future iterations.
For more information on the proposed changes to the SOL, click here.