Offshore Industry

(asked on 10th July 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the financial contribution of the oil and gas sector to the economy of (a) each region of the UK and (b) the UK; and how many jobs the oil and gas sector supports in each region of UK.


Answered by
Chris Skidmore Portrait
Chris Skidmore
This question was answered on 17th July 2019

The Department estimates that the oil and gas sector, defined as the combination of Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes 6 and 19, made a financial contribution of £23.9bn of Gross Value Added (GVA) to the UK economy in 2018[1]. The latest release of the UK Business Register and Employment Survey indicates that there were 20,700 direct jobs in the sector, with a further 124,100 roles supported in the immediate supply chain.[2] While it is not possible to estimate the economic contribution of the oil and gas sector to each region of the UK with sufficient granularity, the latest Oil and Gas UK Workforce Report estimates that Scotland, Greater London and the South East of England account for three-fifths of total employment supported by the offshore oil and gas industry.[3]

[1] ‘Extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas’ and ‘Manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products’ respectively. Note that as SIC code 19 includes coke oven products, this measure may lead to a slight overestimate. For context, the balance of GVA generated is £20.5bn and £3.4bn for SIC codes 6 and 19 respectively: GDP output approach – low-level aggregates, ONS - June 2019

[2]Industry (2, 3 and 5 - digit SIC) - Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES), ONS - September 2018

[3] Workforce Report, Oil & Gas UK - 2018

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