College offers outstanding opportunity for Oil & Gas workers to get ready for their future.

West College Scotland was selected to deliver a Scottish Government Initiative aimed at supporting Oil & Gas workers affected by redundancies in the crisis-hit industry.

Managed by Skills Development Scotland, the £12m Oil & Gas Transition Training Fund will enable a few selected training institutions to deliver fully funded courses specifically designed to help former workers in the Oil & Gas industry, or those at risk of losing their jobs, to re-train, upskill or get accreditation/certification.

With investment in Scotland’s Oil & Gas Sector forecasted to fall from a record £14.8b in 2014 to around £9b this year, many workers are or will be facing redundancy. Many of these highly skilled workers only have training specific to the Oil & Gas sector, making it difficult for them to find jobs in other fields.
The courses delivered at West College Scotland’s three campuses in Clydebank, Greenock and Paisley are designed to allow former Oil & Gas workers to transfer their expertise to other settings and gain new skills. Nearly 200 course places will be offered this year at the College in a wide range of fields such as Health & Safety; Building Services including Domestic Gas; Inspection, Testing and Verification of Electrical Installations; Energy Assessment; Computer Networking and Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector.

Andrew Fogarty, Head of Energy & Engineering at West College Scotland said: “West College Scotland is delighted to be working in partnership with the Transition Training Fund to offer new skills to individuals from Scotland’s Oil & Gas Sector. The training programmes we offer reflect the skills needed by employers to take advantage of opportunities in our local and national economy. We hope as many individuals and organisations as possible can benefit from this funded transition training which will increase the pool of talent available to Scotland’s employers”

Courses will be delivered starting later this month (October) and Oil & Gas workers as well as organisations are invited to register their interest now. West College Scotland’s team should be contacted at oil&[email protected] or on 0800 052 9610.

For more information, visit www.westcollegescotland.ac.uk/training-for-business