Oil & Gas

Introduction & trends

A number of employment and recruitment trends could be seen within the global oil & gas industry. As an example; the Middle East has the highest requirement for Engineering & Construction professionals due to the many infrastructure projects in the region. North America and the Middle East have both a high demand for Exploration & Production professionals.

Regarding availability and demographics, several trends are emerging.

• The average age of the professionals is high
• The main source of recruitment are the western countries like United Kingdom
• The younger generation comes to a large extend from the developing countries

Research shows that management is dominated by the older western generation which means that in the next 10 years — due to the retirement of many of these managers, there will be a major shift.

In Exploration & Production there are few young managers — most have over 15 years experience. Companies seem reluctant to want to give young managers an opportunity. Drilling manager demographics clearly shows the lack of the younger generation in management.

Salary data showed Middle East salaries, on average, are in the middle range. The reason for this is the mix between western and Asian professionals.

For certain upstream professions the shortage of experienced candidates is leading to higher salaries.

Positions for geologists, reservoir engineers, petroleum engineers and geoscientists are harder to fill and therefore attract higher salaries. This is driven by a greater demand in North America but it is starting to affect the industry in other regions. The age demographics of this group show that there is no immediate solution. There is no younger generation to take over. These are the professionals needed to find and develop oil & gas resources. With global consumption of oil and gas constantly growing their skills are in high demand.

Future requirtements

It is predicted that in the years to come recruitment in the exploration & production area will require more specialised skills to identify and attract the right candidates. In Engineering & Construction certain skills are in high demand, mainly in the Middle East, but there isn’t a certain group where there is a shortage.

Engineering & Construction has the advantage that there are already well experienced candidates from Asia and other areas and a younger generation ready to take over.

Shortages in Engineering & Construction could occur as major infrastructure projects are undertaken in Russia and FSU. Oil & Gas production there has mainly been increased by improving old fields and it is observed an increase in the demand for pipeline engineers due to the pipeline being built from the Caspian to Turkey.

INAC-expert team members cover regions such as Russia, Europe, India and the Americas.