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The latest Energy Transition 42 report should serve as a wake-up call to anyone with a stake in the future of the North Sea.
For half a century, this basin has powered the UK, underpinned our energy security and provided highly skilled, well-paid work for generations across the North-east.
But the picture emerging today is stark: confidence has fallen to levels we have never recorded before.
At the heart of this year’s findings is a crisis of certainty. Companies that would once have looked to the UK Continental Shelf as a natural home for investment are now diverting spend to places where the rules don’t change every Budget cycle.
Revenue expectations have dropped to historic lows. And, most worryingly of all, one in three companies now expect to cut their North-east headcount within five years.
These aren’t abstract trends. When a business pauses a project or shifts capital overseas, it is felt directly in this region – in supply-chain order books, apprenticeship numbers, and the long-term capability of a workforce that has delivered world-leading engineering for decades.
But this is not a story of industry lacking ambition. In fact, the opposite is true.
Across the energy economy, companies are working hard to diversify into new markets - from offshore wind and carbon capture to digitalisation and emissions-reduction technologies.
Within the D2Zero group alone, businesses like Score Group, Hydrasun and nexos are already at the forefront of this shift: supporting emissions reduction today, developing solutions for a lower-carbon future, and exporting expertise that has been built in the North-east over decades.
Yet diversification alone won’t deliver a just and orderly transition. Businesses can only commit at scale if they operate in a landscape that is stable, predictable and competitive.
That is not the environment they recognise today. The Energy Profits Levy has stalled investment, delayed electrification and decommissioning activity and undermined projects that would otherwise support Scottish jobs. Nine in ten survey respondents say the absence of a Scottish energy strategy is harming confidence.
This matters because the prize on offer is extraordinary. A £96 billion offshore wind pipeline is within reach of this region. The Acorn project has the potential to anchor thousands of long-term jobs and establish Scotland as a global force in CCUS. In floating wind, digital operations, remote technologies, well-plugging and abandonment, and emissions reduction, North-east Scotland already leads – and could dominate internationally with the right backing.
These opportunities are real, measurable, and directly aligned with the skills of our existing workforce. But they require government to create the conditions in which companies can invest with confidence rather than look elsewhere.
The direction of travel is clear. We need a stable fiscal regime that encourages long-term planning. We need accelerated grid and consenting reform so that projects can move from PowerPoint to construction. And we need a just transition that protects the people and supply chain who will build the next generation of the UK’s energy infrastructure.
Our region has powered the UK for 50 years. With the right choices, it will power its net-zero future too. But the window for action is narrowing. Government, industry and all of us who care about the future of the North-east must now turn the opportunity outlined in this report into reality.
At D2Zero, we are proud to support this research and proud to stand with the companies who contributed to it. The message is simple: the opportunity is still ours – but only if the UK chooses to compete for it.
You can download the full report here.
