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The gas industry must change its narrative to attract talent.

By Ben Hill

This is only half of the problem. The gas industry is also increasingly struggling to attract the new talent it needs. Just 12 percent of employees in this sector are under the age of 30: the lowest figure reported amongst any major UK industrial sector.

Compelling more talent into the industry is crucial for its future success, and to meet the UK’ s future energy requirements more broadly. But this will require the sector to address critical misconceptions.

Industry insiders worry that graduates and aspiring engineers don’ t see a long-term future in gas careers, being a sector students and trainees mainly associate with fossil fuels – which has less relevance in a net-zero world. Instead, they’ re choosing to specialize in low and zero carbon subsectors like renewables and nuclear.

Indeed, natural gas will continue to play a critical role during the energy transition over the next decade. But there’ s longevity promised by hydrogen, and transitioning today’ s infrastructure for the transmission of natural gas, into tomorrow’ s infrastructure for hydrogen.

Connecting young talent with this opportunity and building confidence in the long-term future of gas sector careers, needs to be a key priority for the sector.

The clean energy infrastructure of tomorrow

Ultimately the gas infrastructure of today can be the clean energy infrastructure of tomorrow. The country’ s vast gas network comprises over 300,000 km of pipelines alongside a sophisticated National Transmission System( NTS). This existing infrastructure will provide a strong foundation for a hydrogen transmission network – which looks set to play a key role in the UK’ s clean energy future.

Much of our existing gas infrastructure could be repurposed to transport hydrogen instead. Not only is it technically feasible,

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