Over the past year, the OECD Shipbuilding Unit has been co-ordinating with the United Kingdom’s National Shipbuilding Office on a programme of work to improve knowledge of and recommend policies to support the country’s shipbuilding and ship repair industry. Research was conducted along four branches of inquiry: a data collection ‘toolkit’, the development of a framework to quantify skills imbalances, a comparative market and policy analysis, and identification of market failures. Various quantitative and qualitative approaches were used, including mapping available information, analysis of various key economic indicators, collection and analysis of additional data, in-depth literature research, and stakeholder engagement. This work has resulted in three reports: on data capabilities, on the quantification of skills imbalances, and on opportunities for and barriers to resilient growth.
Programme management and NSO-OECD co-ordination was undertaken by Matthew Jones and Leonie Finke on the NSO and OECD side, respectively, under the guidance of James Whitehouse Hebbourn and Laurent Daniel, respectively. Projects were led by Emilie Berger, Marina Daley, Yuki Inoue, and Leonie Finke, with contributions from Sunhye Lee, Juliana Gonzalez, Anna Lafforgue, Jiwon Choi, Hugo Vitrac, and Naveed Anjum.
The resulting reports were prepared by Leonie Finke, Yuki Inoue, Emilie Berger, Marina Daley, Anna Lafforgue, Jiwon Choi, and Hugo Vitrac, under the guidance and supervision of Laurent Daniel and Stephan Raes.
The authors would like to express their sincere thanks to Matthew Jones, James Whitehouse Hebbourn, Gavin Marshall, Rue McIlmoyle, James Hogg, and other colleagues at the UK National Shipbuilding Office (NSO) for their excellent collaboration, valuable input, and continued engagement throughout the development of these reports.
The authors would also like to thank the many stakeholders, whose time, trust, and perspectives have truly enlivened the narrative these reports have sought to uncover.
Finally, the authors thank the various OECD colleagues who were consulted throughout the research and writing process, enriching with diverse expertise the analysis and outcomes of these reports.