Bridging the skills gap for safe utility delivery

As the UK energy sector scales to meet 2030 workforce demands, the challenge lies in ensuring safety alongside speed. We must bridge competency gaps and adopt collaborative enterprise models to overcome regulatory hurdles and deliver public value.

The discussion highlights a sobering reality: as we scale up to meet the 2030 workforce demand, the most critical blocker isn’t just ‘finding’ people, but also ensuring that they are safe.

Bringing people into our sector could introduce new ideas that will help us scale up deliverability and productivity. The fact that 20% of apparently qualified workers currently fail site-entry competency tests shows we have a quality gap that must be addressed. As a sector, we must press those who train and licence people so that they address the gaps in competency we are experiencing. Within our contracts, we should also better encourage innovation and the exchange of ideas across industries and sectors and be clearer about the red lines where safety or process risk restrain what can be changed.

Planning and regulation remain issues in delivery, in part because the costs aren’t visible and aren’t borne by those who raise questions. Processes can be simplified and made more proportionate to the actual risk, but they will not be unless there is an incentive to do so. Perhaps it is time for schemes to centrally publish cost / benefit delays due to planning authorities and regulators, so that they can be more effectively held to account by elected officials and the public. Currently it is the utilities which bear the brunt of public frustration, but not all delays or cost overruns are within their control.

We have learned that moving away from transactional, “them and us”, contracting offers better outcomes. Enterprise models, alliances and the NEC contract forms have shown the way forward. Especially in a cost-of-living crisis, and with global challenges to energy supply, we need to extend improved collaboration within the sector, but also with those who regulate and control its processes if we are to provide the best services and value that we can for the public. It is time that everyone involved in the sector works to address that mindset shift.

This article was first published in Utility Week.