Connected Strategy for Hydrogen Value Chain ^ Top ^ 53 The E&U industry will have to focus on creating entirely new skills sets The number of graduates joining the O&G upstream sector has fallen by 61 percent in the last four years17. In addition, many Petro technical professionals have retired, while those who wish to rejoin the industry lack the skills required by the latest technical enhancements. These combined trends threaten to lead to another generation-related skills gap, like that faced by O&G operators in the early 2000s because of a lack of hiring in the 1990s. Digital innovation, coupled with new asset portfolios and the technology required to achieve decarbonization goals, will create new technical professional roles and redefine existing ones. The traditional roles of geologists, geophysicists and reservoir engineers will diminish with a greater demand for data analytics, digital and process automation. As technology rapidly changes, this will be an ongoing process, and as such, the workforce of the future will need continuous reskilling along a technology- oriented trajectory. The World Economic forum18 estimates that by 2025, 50% of workers will need reskilling because of automation. While 85 million jobs will be replaced, 97 million new roles will emerge which are expected to have a heavy emphasis on data analytics, digital experience, and process automation with a new division of labor between humans, machines, and algorithms. In making the transition to the new business models it will be imperative that the Energy and Utility companies have a highly technical workforce who can innovate, connect, and help optimize the future energy and utility systems. In its recent report, the World Economic Forum identifies the following top five skills for the workforce of 2025:  Analytical thinking and innovation  Active learning and learning strategies  Complex problem-solving  Critical thinking and analysis  Creativity, originality, and initiative These are not skills that are exclusive to one industry or sector. Analysis by Deloitte suggests that the power sector workforce could triple by 2035 so the fight to attract and maintain the workforce will be fierce. The analysis takes full account of power sector growth considering both core and the broader sector. The core being defined as utility scale electric generation, transmission, and distribution in