r/ChemicalEngineering • u/Visual_Astronaut1506 • Jun 26 '25

Job Search Where are all the engineering jobs in the UK?

Just looking around - looked on the Shell careers site.

They list 8 jobs - FOR THE ENTIRE UK. Similar story on the BP site.

And none of them are for engineering (closest is a control room operator, the rest are IT/finance roles). What is going on? Do they all hire by word of mouth now?

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74

u/Outside_Hotel_1762 Jun 26 '25

Sir, those jobs are in India.

-4

u/jutwerf Jun 26 '25

What is that supposed to mean

5

u/yepyep5678 Jun 27 '25

They're all outsourcing to India right now to "save" money

1

u/jutwerf Jun 27 '25

They're outsourcing Chemical Engineering jobs ? The OP Said he did find IT jobs but not core engineering

5

u/Financial-Cobbler-77 Jun 27 '25

They're outsourcing 20%+ of their engineering jobs to India yes. Just like Chevron.

2

u/jutwerf Jun 27 '25

How can you outsource core engineering jobs that require you to be there which most of chemE work is ?

5

u/Financial-Cobbler-77 Jun 27 '25

Fuck knows. Ask mckinsey

1

u/yepyep5678 Jun 27 '25

They're creating "technical hubs" aka 3 shite Indian diploma mill engineers for the price of 1 , looks great on the books, prob other benefits like market access having a technical hub in country.

Most engineering in oil and gas is done back in a central team back onshore or supports multiple offshore activities from the main campus.

Rare for a chem eng to be based solely on an asset

1

u/Global-Figure9821 Jun 28 '25

I am not a chemE (MechE actually). Why do you think chemE can’t be done remotely? Can’t you access data remotely? Attend meetings online? Phone operators and technicians?

I used to work on a large site and they used to say our jobs couldn’t be done remotely. Then COVID came and the engineers all managed to work remotely, while the operators and technicians remained on site.

2

u/EmergencyAnything715 Jun 30 '25

Why do you think chemE can’t be done remotely?

Nothing cant be done remotely. Is there an efficiency loss with remote work, yes. Its more difficult to colliaborate over digital means. Throw in remote work, different culture, and a timezone difference, and you are bound to have significant issues. We do at our company with this support structure, tech support on the other side of the world is terrible and inefficient.

Have you ever tried calling customer support and been routed to a person from outside the your country? It's like that with our operators when our tech center calls to enquire what is going on..

I used to work on a large site and they used to say our jobs couldn’t be done remotely. Then COVID came and the engineers all managed to work remotely, while the operators and technicians remained on site.

Thats because you have networks onsite prior to be remote. The transition is way easier vs if you have never been on site to build those connections or are now on the other side of the world. The engineers on our site that had previously been there had an easy time with the transition. The ones that just transfered to site at the start of covid had a more difficult time working with the team since those connections did not exist.

27

u/Financial-Cobbler-77 Jun 26 '25

Equinor the Norwegian state oil company and one of the largest in the world has 0 jobs open. Not 0 engineering. 0 total. Globally.

And this company are bringing online the largest untapped reservoir in UK waters, rosebank. No jobs though.

4

u/purepwnage85 Jun 26 '25

When your ceo grabs his 12 inch dildo and goes around bending everyone over telling them to reduce indirect costs, they're forced to do design / build with full service contracts

18

u/Engineers_on_film Jun 26 '25

Look at the websites of the contractors that do the engineering work for jobs.

8

u/UKgrizzfan Jun 26 '25

They tend to contract out most work. Plenty of work for the firms they contract to at the moment and if you have experience a lot of places are looking for contractors too.

8

u/Electricbell20 Jun 26 '25

Look at RR SMR they are gearing up.

Oil and gas jobs are susceptible to geopolitics. A lot of projects won't currently be viable due to the low oil price.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '25

Despite the attention it’s receiving now, I don’t see SMRs sustaining themselves. Don’t seem viable

2

u/RebelBelle Jun 26 '25

What type of engineer are you? I often recruit engineers, I work in a manufacturing SME in the NW and its a nightmare finding engineers - we often have to go to an agency.

Sign up with agencies. They'll share roles with you.

1

u/Grouchy-Beginning820 Jul 30 '25

hello would u mind sharing which type of engineering are most demand in the UK if possible thank you

2

u/T_J_Rain Jun 27 '25

Now that you can do real math, might be time to retrain in arithmetic - sorry, accounting.

Better opportunities, and far easier to make a quid in. I switched to biomed eng, then accounting, then finance, then consulting after chem eng. Never looked back.

1

u/Wiil-Waal713 Jun 27 '25

What’s your age bracket if you don’t mind? It’d take me 3 lifetimes to switch careers that many times lol

1

u/T_J_Rain Jun 27 '25

Not telling, but close to retirement. You're good at math - have a guess. I won't be confirming or denying.

First few changes were over about a 16 year period after first degree, then pretty much 20+ years in management consulting in the big-4 tax/ audit firms.

Working, studying and raising a family was a juggling act, let me tell you. The firms got their pound of flesh, but I got the pound of gold.

2

u/ahfmca Jun 27 '25

Outsourced to the Middle East and India, few token jobs left .

3

u/NorthKoreaPresident Jun 27 '25

All the jobs are outsourced. If you look in India and Singapore and China you see shit ton of engineering jobs. 

They're unable to move maintenance and operations jobs overseas yet so you still see controller and operator roles popping up every now and then

1

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1

u/LUYAL69 Jun 27 '25

Since when do we do manufacturing here?

1

u/Aristoteles1988 Jun 29 '25

I’m a CPA for top acctg firm (back in school for masters in physics so that’s I hang out here)

I do tax compliance for Private equity oil and gas industry a lot of our accounting jobs being outsourced to India too

Oil and gas is hurting

Check out crude oil prices.. download TradingView. Always keep up with the financial side of ur industry my guys

Alright peace out

0

u/Hot-Manner9388 Jun 26 '25

Every job is in India now. No jobs in US as well