Publication
Scoping Study - Future education and skills needs in the Irish maritime industry
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In 2023, the Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO), working on behalf of the Department of Transport, commissioned Steelesrock Strategy Consulting to undertake a scoping study on the future skills needs in the Irish Maritime industry. The study was completed in October 2024.
The ‘Future Education and Skills Needs in the Irish Maritime Industry’ study focuses on possible future skills requirements of five sub-sectors of Ireland’s maritime economy, namely: Maritime Transport; Shipbuilding and Related Services; Offshore Renewable Energy and Alternative Fuels; Marine Tourism; and Maritime Monitoring, Security and Surveillance. The chosen time horizon for the study was approximately 10 years hence. This study brings together the results, conclusions and recommendations following on from analysis of an industry wide survey of these five sub-sectors.
Notes :
It is crucial that Ireland has a highly skilled workforce armed with the tools needed to adapt to the evolving economic and technological landscape in the maritime industry.
In 2015 ‘A Study of the Current and Future Skills Requirements of the Marine/Maritime Economy to 2020’ was published by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (see below).
The current scoping study set out to fill two knowledge gaps around the skills and training needs in Ireland’s maritime sector. The first concerns identifying changes in the sector’s skills requirement since the publication of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN) in 2015. The second concerns the need to understand how changes in the maritime sector, including plans to accelerate the development of the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) sector, may result in the requirement for new skills; and the impact for these skills on ports and related maritime industry sub-sectors.
While the broader scope of maritime education is outside the remit of the Department of Transport, the future education and skills needs in the Irish maritime industry, are recognised as being of significant importance to the sector.
Further consultation will take place with the IMDO and colleagues in Government departments more associated with this subject matter, including the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
Additional examination of the scoping study recommendations will also be required by the Department of Transport to provide reliable feedback to the port and maritime sector on the means to pursue the suggested actions of the report, some of which, will rest with the industry itself to pursue.
