10K Offshore Workers Spending Holiday Around Britain’s Coasts

Around 10,000 offshore oil and gas workers are spending the Christmas and New Year holiday “far out on the dark seas around Britain’s coasts, providing the energy to heat homes, cook turkeys, and power fairy lights”, industry body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) highlighted in a statement sent to Rigzone recently.

“As most people are eating, drinking, and open[ing presents]… with family and friends, this vast army of men and women will be making sure the heat and power is there to make it all happen, working on gas and oil installations that can be more than 200 miles from the UK mainland,” OEUK said in the statement.

The industry body noted in the statement that this workforce helps to supply the daily average of 265 million cubic meters of gas the UK needs on Christmas Day and each of the following days of the Christmas break “to cook our food, heat our homes, and run the 35 gas-fired power stations that remain the backbone of the UK’s electricity generating system”.

OEUK highlighted in the statement that, despite the growth of wind-generated electricity, more than 25 percent of the electricity the UK uses is still generated by gas, adding that this figure can reach up to 55 percent on days when there is no wind.

“There are still more than 21 million homes in this country that rely on gas for their central heating, and 11 million kitchens that have gas ovens,” OEUK pointed out in the statement.

The industry body went on to note that, “although a vast expanse of waves separates offshore workers from home and loved ones”, Christmas on rigs offshore the UK “is far from a miserable affair”.

“When I first started working offshore 18 years ago there was no WIFI – just three phone boxes and big queues to use them,” Andy Pulford, who is managing a Christmas workforce of 90 and a complex of 23 gas wells around Spirit Energy’s Morecambe Bay central processing complex, said in the statement.

“Now there’s internet and video calling, but people can still feel isolated having Christmas offshore. We don’t want that to happen and we try to keep the crew together as much as we can,” he added.

“I always get everyone together on Christmas morning for a chat and run through what’s going to happen. We have snooker, pool and table tennis tournaments, music and quizzes, a raffle with high value fantastic prizes, plus the most fantastic food which I go down into the galley and help serve,” he continued.

OEUK Chief Executive David Whitehouse said in the statement, “it is easy to forget that while we are sitting down to lunch there are thousands of offshore workers in UK waters – on rigs, vessels, windfarms, and other energy projects – who will be working through the holiday to keep the country powered,” he added.

“We should never take them for granted,” he went on to state.

OEUK’s 2025 Workforce Insight report, which was published last month and focused on “the people powering the future of the North Sea”, highlighted that the UK’s integrated energy workforce totals 154,000 people.

There were a total of 40,023 offshore oil and gas workers in 2024, with 22,342 of these categorized as core workers, according to the report, which described those spending over 100 nights per year offshore as core workers. Of the total offshore oil and gas worker figure of 40,023, 17,957 were based in Scotland, 10,734 were based in England, and 8,832 were non-UK based, the report showed.

“Our sector supports over 150,000 jobs and contributes more than GBP 25 billion [$33.7 billion] annually to the UK economy,” Katy Heidenreich, OEUK Director, Supply Chain & People, said in the report.

“It’s a strategic national asset, one we must nurture, invest in, and champion,” Heidenreich added.

OEUK describes itself on its website as the leading representative body for the UK offshore energy industry and a not for profit membership organization “with a history stretching back five decades”.

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com