The UK’s half-century legacy as a leading offshore oil and gas hub will be eclipsed by the North Sea’s fast-growing green energy industry within the next decade, according to new research.

An academic study by the Robert Gordon University, based in the oil industry capital of Aberdeen in Scotland, has found that by 2030 most of the UK’s offshore energy jobs will be in the low carbon energy industry.

The research found that the number of green jobs off the UK’s coastlines is likely to climb from 20% of the country’s offshore energy sector to 65% by the end of the decade in a “significant change for the offshore energy industry”.

Almost half of the jobs in the UK’s offshore energy industry will be supported by the offshore wind sector, which is the largest in the world and could support up to 90,000 roles by 2030 under a new deal with the government to support a quadrupling of wind power capacity.

Meanwhile a fifth of offshore energy industry […]