Britain’s North Sea oil and gas sector will see more than 100,000 jobs disappear over the next 25 years, according to figures from the Labour Government.
Data obtained from a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) found that more than 113,000 positions will be wiped out over the next quarter-century, representing a 82.7 per cent collapse in the workforce.
According to the figures, the sector employed 136,675 people, counting both direct and indirect roles, in 2024, the year Labour came to power.
That number has already shrunk to 115,720 this year, a decline of nearly 21,000 in just two years. By 2050, around 23,584 positions are projected to remain.
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The FoI request was conducted by the Conservative Party and exposes the impact of Labour’s manifesto pledge to prohibit new oil and gas exploration licences, combined with the party’s continuation of a windfall tax on producers.
By 2030, some 54,268 roles are forecast to have vanished, and by 2035 more than half the workforce will have been eliminated, with 77,783 posts gone.
According to DESNZ’s own analysis, each direct position in the industry sustains an additional 4.4 jobs throughout the wider supply chain across the country.
Ministers are understood to be contemplating spending billions on new infrastructure, including the potential acquisition of a vessel to carry liquefied natural gas, to secure the UK’s energy supplies through imports.
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Ministers are expected to rule by next month on whether two Scottish fields, Rosebank and Jackdaw, can proceed to drilling. Rosebank, situated roughly 80 miles north-west of Shetland, is the North Sea’s largest undeveloped oil field.
Jackdaw lies approximately 150 miles east of Aberdeen. Reports indicate that Prime Minister Andy Burnham is inclined to give the green light to the field but block development at Rosebank.
Mr Burnham previously said: “We won’t be able to stop using oil and gas for some time, that’s just a fact.
“The question is whether we can accelerate use of it so that we pay for the transition, and one thing helps the other… whether that extraction can be the bridge to the clean energy future we need, and bring it forward
Yet the Prime Minister finds himself caught between competing factions within his own party.
Backbenchers committed to Net Zero targets are pressing him to reject new drilling, while Scottish MPs and industry advocates are urging him to safeguard the sector’s future.
Developers behind the Rosebank and Jackdaw projects maintain that approval could sustain more than 3,500 jobs and deliver in excess of £20billion.
Claire Coutinho, the Conservative’s Shadow Energy Secretary, said: “It is complete economic insanity to shut down our own oil and gas industry when we’ll need both for decades to come.
“All we will be doing is importing more of what we need with higher emissions, and as we can see ,tens of thousands of livelihoods will be lost in the process.”
A DESNZ spokesman said: “We are clear that oil and gas will continue to play an important role in our energy system for decades to come while we transition to clean power.”
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