Industry Analysts estimate that there is severe shortage of qualified specialist workforce in the oil and gas sector with 120,000 vacancies to be filled over the next ten years for the North Sea alone. Leading employers agree with this statistic. The shortage of engineers is widespread throughout the world markets in the petroleum industry with salaries already high being driven further up as a result. For instance, the shortage had led to an increase of starting salary for fresh engineering graduates joining the oil and gas companies in the UK to an average value over £34,000 in 2011, well above other industry sectors. The December 2012 issue of PE (Professional Engineer), the IMechE member’s magazine also had a designated article on skill shortage in the oil and gas sector, citing BP as an example in the effort the industry is taking to address the problem. Aims The proposed programme has been developed to target engineering and physical science graduates interested in working in the oil and gas industry. In addition, the programme will target professional practicing specialists in the oil and gas sector who wish to specialise in the design, analysis and construction of oil and gas installations to further their careers in their current organisations or progress to a specialist oilfield services engineering or consulting organisation. Overall the programme aims at training specialist engineers in oilfield structures design, fabrication and installation. A key feature that distinguishes this programme is its overall ambition to instil systems thinking to specialist engineers, by treating those structures and their operating environment holistically as a system, and provide the ability and skills to address a wide range of complex engineering problems rapidly. As the industry now seeks the rapid drilling and commissioning of thousands of new wells and, to particularly those for heavy oils and shale oil and gas to meet energy demands, skilled engineers who can rapidly design and commission oilfield installations will be the backbone for growth in this industry. It is precisely those engineers the programme will develop.

Graduates will seek recruitment within all three sectors in the business, i.e. operators, service and supply, and consulting companies throughout the whole supply chain in the industry. In particular the UK is the strongest in oilfield services provision being a core component of the UK manufacturing and service base. As a result, the programme will specifically target the following two sectors, related mainly to surface services : * Engineering, fabrication and installation (£11.2 Bn annually in UK) * Operations (£8.5 Bn annually in UK) Surface services are delivered by a large number of industrial organisations as well as oil and gas producers, in contrast to subsurface dominated by very few global providers. Industry have expressed strong interest in the programme with several leading companies have already offered to help with teaching, placement as well as supervision of dissertation projects. Careers Oilfield services companies, engineering consulting or upstream oil and gas producers and downstream refineries.