The maintenance backlog: why competency is more critical than ever

It is hard to believe that March marked the fifth anniversary of the first COVID-19 restrictions imposed in the UK. Just as in many areas of our daily lives, the global oil and gas sector continues to face challenges in a post-pandemic world.

The pandemic anniversary coincides with my own journey at CompEx, having joined the organisation a matter of weeks before the first lock down in the UK. Those who are familiar with CompEx are likely to have encountered us in relation to competency certification for electrical and mechanical technicians and engineers, operating in hazardous areas. What may not be so widely known is that CompEx has a long history supporting technical competency offshore that was borne from Lord Cullen’s investigation into the 1988 Piper Alpha tragedy.

Today, the CompEx scheme supports and recognises practitioners with relevant, transferable skills that apply in a range of industrial sectors including oil and gas, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food manufacturing, critical infrastructure and utilities.

The backlog and COVID-19

Five years ago, North Sea operators and regulators were quick to identify the risks of work scope postponement because of the pandemic restrictions. But, as highlighted in OEUK’s 2022 Maintenance Backlog Measurement, Interpretation and Management Guidelines, while a sharp increase in backlogs did occur in 2020 due to the additional challenges of COVID-19, the pandemic only served to exacerbate an existing trend of increasing backlogs that had been evident for several years. The pandemic was ‘not in itself a root cause’.

More recently, in 2023, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reported that backlog levels had not returned to pre-COVID levels. In parallel, the number of enforcement notices issued by the HSE in 2023 and 2024 remained steady at 25 and 24 per year, respectively. While these largely involved improvement notices, each year was marred by the issuance of a prohibition notice to separate operators. The HSE also revealed in 2024 that backlog levels had further deteriorated, with some operators even going backwards on critical maintenance.

The perfect storm

It has been almost impossible to miss the wider discussion about maintenance backlog across much of our critical infrastructure over the past year. The risks to public safety and wellbeing due to backlogs impact everything, from our water supply and school estate to power distribution, the NHS and most recently airport operations at Heathrow.

Indeed, as these examples illustrate, many of the causative factors of maintenance backlogs in the oil and gas sector are replicated across other industrial sectors. However, for the oil and gas industry, economic uncertainty, political change, and skills shortages are exacerbated by the often remote and extreme operating environment. Beyond the obvious financial implications that oil and gas operators might face because of a critical incident; the health and safety, environmental and reputational risks are significant.

Ensuring workforce competence in explosive atmospheres

At CompEx, our expertise lies in enabling competence for those who work in potentially explosive atmospheres, and the oil and gas sector faces complex and material risk in this regard which are exacerbated by other sector specific factors. When remote assets, which are often operating well past their design lives, are put into the mix, bridging the gap between supply and demand for a skilled and capable workforce is fundamental to reducing maintenance backlogs and ensuring safe operations.

In its 2024 World Energy Employment Survey, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported an inadequate pipeline of new workforce entrants globally: there are difficulties finding qualified applicants for nearly all occupation categories. Similarly, in the UK during the same period, the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) reported that 71% of employers had hiring difficulties, highlighting skill shortages as a key issue.

Our data shows that approximately 45% of CompEx certified practitioners in the UK work predominantly in oil and gas, compared to 80% internationally. Underlining the findings from the ECITB report, CompEx candidate registrations from UK oil and gas have remained broadly flat over the past year or so. Given that our candidate registration numbers are indicative of experience levels within the workforce (because CompEx certification requires a baseline occupational experience of three to five years) this suggests that a near term solution to the skills and competency gap is not achievable without a concerted effort to attract new entrants with appropriate occupational qualifications.

Whilst there is a wider debate about the supply and funding of sufficient apprenticeships, there is some good news in our data. Our data shows that the total number of CompEx certified practitioners has steadily increased over the last five years, and they are, on average, younger than they were pre-pandemic.

The existing competent workforce is stretched, and various labour market forecasts suggests this will increase in the next few years, with significant competition for oil and gas from across the energy mix (not least nuclear and renewables) and the wider economy. We share the concerns raised by others in this space that significant work is required if we are to achieve a competent, sustainable workforce and address the skills gap to meet demand over the next five to ten years.

The ECITB’s Workforce Census 2024 Report, showed that the nuclear sector, for example, surpassed oil and gas as the largest employer in engineering and construction, accounting for just under 40% of the workforce, with the renewables sector nearly doubling its workforce share int the same period.

Skills and competency shortages also extend to leadership. This is an issue compounded over the past decade by the downturn, changing models of private-equity-backed exploration and production (E&P), aging asset disposal, to the more recent increase in knowledge migration to renewables. As noted in a recent HSE report a lack of operational experience in the C-suite perpetuates the ongoing production versus maintenance conundrum, ‘normalisation of deviation’ and complacent process safety leadership.

The challenge and accompanying risk posed by the maintenance backlog is significant, but not insurmountable. Addressing the workforce skills and competency gap is one of several factors that will contribute to reducing maintenance backlogs. But addressing them will mitigate the risk of major incidents – and consequences for the workforce, asset integrity, corporate reputation, security of supply – and not least for the potential of wider environmental harm.

Along with our training provider network we continue to support, enable and recognise the knowledge and skills of hazardous areas practitioners around the world. It is five years from on from the COVID-19 crisis and we must all remain on the front foot to prevent future major incidents in all safety-critical industries by attracting and investing in a competent workforce.