Six million pounds in retraining money became available this morning. The Oil and Gas Transition Training Fund, jointly backed by the Scottish and UK Governments at £3 million each, is now open for its 2026-27 round. The fund is designed to move workers out of oil and gas roles and into employment across other sectors, renewables, manufacturing, engineering, digital, healthcare, and more. The Scottish Government estimates over a thousand workers will access funded training through this cycle alone.
The timing is deliberate. North Sea output has been declining for years, and the pace of that decline is accelerating. According to the North Sea Transition Authority, the UK continental shelf is expected to see continued production falls through the late 2020s, with Rosebank and other contested projects still caught in legal and political uncertainty. Workers who've built careers in offshore logistics, subsea engineering, or rig operations need a route forward. This fund is one of the few concrete mechanisms that provides it.
What makes this fund worth paying attention to, beyond the headline number, is the breadth of roles it can support retraining into. The Scottish Government's energy transition strategy, published under its Just Transition Commission framework, has consistently identified transferable skills in the oil and gas workforce as an asset Scotland cannot afford to waste. Welders, project managers, safety officers, data analysts, these are people who can walk into a wind farm, a heat pump installation business, or an NHS facilities team with the right short-course certification behind them.
For Edinburgh and central Scotland SMEs, the opportunity is indirect but real. If your business is growing and you need skilled tradespeople, engineers, or technically literate staff, this fund is producing a cohort of retrained workers who will be job-ready within the 2026-27 period. Business Gateway Scotland maintains links with the training providers delivering this programme, and reaching out now to understand the pipeline of candidates coming through could put you ahead of larger employers who move slowly. The fund is administered in partnership with Skills Development Scotland, which runs regional employer engagement programmes worth engaging with directly.
There is a broader point here about what Scotland does with its industrial workforce as the energy mix shifts. Westminster's record on funding transition programmes has been inconsistent, the UK Government's offshore wind targets have slipped, and commitments to North Sea workers have not always matched the rhetoric. The Scottish Government's equal contribution to this fund, and its sustained investment in the Just Transition Commission process, reflects a different set of priorities. Whether you're a worker weighing your options or a business owner thinking about your next hire, the fund is open now and the clock is running on the 2026-27 window.