Oil & Gas
Competence Transfer
A literature review of how oil & gas construction competence maps to nuclear new build, and how it can be leveraged to scale the nuclear industry.
Nuclear's problem is construction, not fission
The nuclear industry faces an unprecedented challenge: tripling global capacity by 2050 requires building more nuclear power in 25 years than the world built in 70. The bottleneck is not reactor technology — it is the construction workforce and supply chain.
Multiple independent studies — from national governments, international agencies, and industry bodies — converge on a striking conclusion: the vast majority of the skills needed to build nuclear power plants already exist in the oil & gas sector.
This literature review compiles the evidence. It draws on 15+ sources across government assessments, IAEA and OECD reports, academic research, and real-world case studies to map the O&G-to-nuclear competence transfer pathway.
"Around 80% of nuclear new build work is conventional construction, not nuclear."
Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), "The UK capability to deliver a new nuclear build programme — 2008 Update." This finding means that four-fifths of the work in building a nuclear plant uses skills that already exist in the O&G construction workforce — project management, civil works, piping, electrical, mechanical fitting, steel erection, and quality management.
A workforce crisis the nuclear industry cannot solve alone
The IAEA forecasts the nuclear industry will require over four million professionals globally to support capacity tripling.
Source: IAEA (2024)
In nuclear, for every young worker entering, 1.7 workers are approaching retirement. One-third of the existing workforce retires by 2033.
Source: IEA (2025)
Only about 30% of jobs in the nuclear industry are focused on operating and maintaining existing plants. Most jobs are concentrated in the manufacturing and construction of nuclear plants.
Source: IAEA (2025)
The bottleneck is specific: Nuclear companies surveyed by the IEA identified engineers as the primary source of workforce bottlenecks, followed by project managers, electrical trades and construction trades such as welders and pipefitters. Some companies reported having to bring in workers from other regions — a practice known as long-distance deployment — which led to cost increases of 10% to 20%, illustrating how labour shortages can directly drive up project costs. — IEA Nuclear Energy Employment Survey (2025)
The wages are attractive: According to the Wages, Benefits, and Change report, in 2021, the median hourly wage for jobs in the nuclear generation industry was 52% higher than the median hourly wage for all jobs in the electric power generation industry, across generation types — and was more than twice (116% higher) the national median hourly wage across all industries. — Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI)
The implication: The nuclear industry cannot grow this workforce from nuclear-only pipelines. As World Nuclear News put it: "Nuclear isn't short of talent; it's short of imagination in how it attracts, trains, and supports the workforce of the future." — Chamberlain, J. (2025). World Nuclear News.
What the research says about skills transferability
Multiple independent studies quantify the overlap between oil & gas and energy construction skills. The consensus is striking: 80%+ of O&G skills are estimated to be transferable to nuclear construction.
Over 90% of the UK's oil and gas workforce possesses skills with medium to high transferability to clean energy roles. This statistic was established for offshore renewables, but the overlap with nuclear construction — which shares similar disciplines in fabrication, piping, and safety-critical quality management — is estimated to be comparable.
70–80% of knowledge and competence in the Norwegian oil and gas sector is transferable to offshore wind and aquaculture. The overlap with nuclear construction, which shares even more disciplines in heavy fabrication and safety-critical systems, is likely comparable or higher.
Around two-thirds of oil and gas supply workers have the base skills needed to move readily into other parts of energy, including nuclear.
| Source | Year | Type | Key Finding | Relevance to O&G → Nuclear |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK Dept. for Energy Security & Net Zero | 2025 | Government | Over 90% of O&G workforce has medium-high transferability to clean energy roles. Nuclear sector needs ~120,000 workers by early 2030s (from 83,000). Engineers represent 24% of clean energy job adverts vs 5% baseline. | Primary UK government source confirming O&G skills have high transferability across clean energy sectors including nuclear. Construction treated as "cross-cutting capacity." |
| Robert Gordon University | 2021–23 | Academic | Over 90% of UK O&G workforce have medium to high skills transferability to clean energy. ~50% of offshore energy jobs in 2030 filled by O&G transfers. Three in five workers to support clean energy by 2030. | The most widely cited transferability statistic, established for clean energy broadly. Referenced by UK government, ECITB, and World Nuclear News. Applicability to nuclear construction specifically is inferred from shared disciplines. |
| ECITB — Skills Transferability Report | 2020 | Industry | Widely cited UK sources (DESNZ 2025; RGU 2021) indicate over 90% of O&G skills are transferable. The ECITB report itself emphasises standardised competence tests (Connected Competence) to enable cross-sector mobility and notes that barriers to transferability are largely institutional (over-specification of qualifications, sector-specific certifications) rather than technical. | ECITB is the statutory skills body for engineering construction across O&G, nuclear, and renewables. The Connected Competence framework validates that the same technical skills are common across these sectors; institutional barriers are the primary obstacle. |
| IEA — World Energy Employment | 2025 | International | Two-thirds of O&G supply workers have base skills for energy transition. In nuclear, 1.7 workers approaching retirement for every young entrant. Over 700 firms reported critical hiring bottlenecks. | International validation of transferability. Combined with acute nuclear retirement crisis, makes the case for O&G workforce mobilisation compelling. |
| IAEA — Nuclear Knowledge Management Conference | 2024 | IAEA | 4+ million nuclear professionals needed by 2050. One-third of existing workforce retiring by 2033. 1+ million new workers needed for replacement alone. 760+ registrants from 108 countries. | The scale of workforce demand makes cross-industry recruitment from O&G essential. The industry cannot grow from nuclear-only pipelines. |
| World Nuclear News — Reframing Nuclear's Talent Challenge | 2025 | Industry | "Nuclear isn't short of talent; it's short of imagination." UK nuclear workforce tripled from 8,500 (2014) to 27,000+. Industries like O&G, aerospace, and defence have significant but overlooked skills overlap. | Advocates abandoning "nuclear purist" hiring and developing "nuclearise" programmes — training initiatives converting O&G professionals for nuclear roles. |
| NIA — UK Capability to Deliver New Nuclear Build | 2008 | Industry | 80% of nuclear new build is conventional construction. UK industry could supply 70–80% of a new build programme. Less than 5% of UK construction capability required. | The single most important statistic for competence transfer. Four-fifths of nuclear construction uses skills already abundant in O&G — project management, civil works, piping, electrical, mechanical fitting. |
| Deegan et al. (2025), citing Afewerki et al. (2025) | 2025 | Academic | 70–80% of knowledge and competence in the Norwegian oil-and-gas sector is relevant and relatively easily transferable to offshore wind and aquaculture. Despite high technical transferability, transition is slow. Barriers are institutional — salary competition, lack of policy direction, not technical capability. | Norwegian-specific data on O&G-to-wind/aquaculture transferability. The 70–80% figure applies to offshore wind; the overlap with nuclear construction — which shares heavy-fabrication and safety-critical practices common to both O&G and offshore wind — implies a potentially high overlap, but this is an editor's estimation, not a direct finding of the study. |
| OECD-NEA — Measuring Employment in Nuclear | 2018 | OECD | 200,000 labour years per GW across full lifecycle. Construction phase alone: 12,000 labour years. Meeting 1,000 GWe target could require 810,000 direct job-years annually at peak. | The 200,000 labour-years per GW figure demonstrates the enormous scale of workforce mobilisation needed. Construction phase draws heavily on trades found in O&G fabrication. |
| LucidCatalyst / ETI — Nuclear Cost Drivers | 2018 | Industry | Labour and construction execution identified as key cost drivers among eight. 35 credible cost reduction opportunities. Examined 33 recent nuclear projects against benchmarks. | Confirms workforce competence directly impacts nuclear project economics. O&G industries have decades of experience optimising labour and construction execution in complex mega-projects. |
| US National Academies — Laying the Foundation | 2023 | Government | AP1000 module factory at Lake Charles, Louisiana "sourced skilled labour from nearby offshore oil platforms." Shortfall in welding, machining, electrical trades already exists. | Most authoritative US source documenting actual O&G-to-nuclear workforce transfer. Lake Charles is direct evidence that offshore platform workers build nuclear modules. |
| NEI — Nuclear Workforce Strategic Plan | 2024 | Industry | ~100,000 direct US nuclear jobs, ~400,000 with supply chain. 75% of coal plant jobs could transition to nuclear with little reskilling. Skilled trades are critically important. | The 75% coal-to-nuclear transferability parallels the O&G thesis. If coal workers transfer readily, O&G workers with more complex safety-critical experience transfer even more so. |
Where the competence overlaps
Project Management
Large-scale EPC project delivery, cost control, scheduling, contractor management, interface management across disciplines. Identical methodologies.
Welding & Fabrication
Pressure vessel welding, pipe fitting, structural steel, modular assembly. O&G welders already work to codes (ASME, API) that overlap with nuclear requirements.
Quality & Safety Culture
Safety-critical operations, HAZOP, quality assurance systems, regulatory compliance, incident investigation. O&G operates under comparable safety regimes.
Electrical & Instrumentation
High-voltage systems, control systems, instrumentation, cable management. Among the most in-demand trades across both sectors.
Modular Construction
Heavy module fabrication, load-out, sea transport, hook-up & commissioning. Norwegian yards have world-leading capability in this exact discipline.
Nuclear-Specific Training
Radiation protection, nuclear QA (NQA-1), reactor systems. The remaining ~20% that requires "nuclearisation" — targeted upskilling, not starting from scratch.
The ECITB Connected Competence framework already enables workers to move between O&G, nuclear, and renewables by standardising technical competence assurance. The barriers to cross-sector mobility are primarily institutional — ingrained recruitment practices that compartmentalise trades unnecessarily — not technical.
Source: ECITB Skills Transferability Report (2020)
Real-world O&G to nuclear transfers
AP1000 Module Factory, Lake Charles
The Westinghouse AP1000 modular construction facility in Louisiana "sourced skilled labour from nearby offshore oil platforms" — a direct, documented case of O&G workers building nuclear reactor modules.
This case also highlights significant quality control challenges that await new and advanced reactor designs — challenges that need to be carefully thought through ahead. Even though the opportunity is there, it does not mean the path will be easy.
US National Academies (2023) open_in_newCammell Laird Shipyard & Nuvia
UK shipyard Cammell Laird partnered with Nuvia and Ansaldo Nucleare to fabricate heavy modules for AP1000 and EPR nuclear plants. Their 40,000 m² modular hall can build modules up to 1,000 tonnes with sea-access load-out for modules up to 5,000 tonnes.
Blue Energy — Shipyard SMR Construction
MIT spinout Blue Energy's entire business model is predicated on building modular nuclear plants in existing shipyards. Projected cost reduction from $10,000/kW to $2,000/kW. Reactor buildings use offshore wind XL-monopile technology.
World Nuclear News (2025) open_in_newNorway's unique position
Norway's position is distinctive. The country hosts one of the world's most sophisticated offshore construction ecosystems, with decades of experience delivering complex, safety-critical platforms on schedule and budget in some of the planet's harshest environments.
A peer-reviewed study (Deegan et al., 2025, citing Afewerki et al., 2025) found that 70–80% of Norwegian O&G knowledge and competence is transferable to offshore wind and aquaculture. The transferability to nuclear construction — which shares heavy-fabrication and safety-critical practices common to both O&G and offshore wind — implies a potentially high overlap, but this is an editor's estimation, not a direct finding of the study.
Yet the study also identified that transfer "is slow and does not take place in a consistent way." The barriers are not technical, they are institutional: salary competition with oil&gas, lack of long-term policy direction (the most cited barrier), and integration costs.
The study's conclusion is clear: "more deliberate government action" is needed to enable effective knowledge transfer. The skills are there. The infrastructure is there. What's missing is the institutional bridge.
Norwegian O&G workforce
Four barriers to transfer
Salary competition
O&G wages outcompete other energy sectors
Policy direction
Most cited barrier — lack of long-term government signal
Integration costs
Complementary knowledge acquisition takes time and investment
Institutional silos
Low institutional relatedness between O&G and new sectors
Five conclusions from the literature
The work is conventional
Around 80% of nuclear new build is conventional construction — project management, civil works, piping, electrical, mechanical fitting. These skills exist at scale in the O&G workforce.
The skills transfer
Multiple independent studies — UK government, ECITB, Robert Gordon University, IEA — converge on 80%+ transferability of O&G skills to clean energy. For nuclear construction, which shares even more overlap with O&G, transferability is estimated to be comparable or higher.
The need is existential
The nuclear industry needs 4+ million workers by 2050 while one-third of its current workforce retires by 2033. It cannot scale from nuclear-only pipelines.
The barriers are not technical
Every study identifies the same pattern: the barriers to competence transfer are institutional — recruitment silos, salary competition, policy uncertainty — not technical capability gaps.
It already works
From Lake Charles AP1000 modules to Cammell Laird's shipyard pivot to Norwegian floating nuclear partnerships — O&G-to-nuclear transfer is not theoretical. It is already happening.
The NNC concept is designed around how the existing yard industry does construction — connecting Norwegian O&G construction expertise to the nuclear new build market.
Read about the NNC Concept arrow_forwardSources
Robert Gordon University. (2021–2023). UK Offshore Energy Workforce Research.
International Energy Agency. (2025). World Energy Employment 2025. IEA.
Nuclear Engineering International. (2010). Nuvia forms new-build alliance with Cammell Laird.
World Nuclear News. (2025). US startup aims for shipyard SMR construction.
World Nuclear News. (2025). Norwegian collaboration on floating nuclear power plants.
OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. (2025). Nuclear construction excellence starts with collaboration.