Crown Estate Scotland

Crown Estate Scotland was created five years ago as a commercial public body to manage the Scottish Crown Estate. A core strategic objective for Crown Estate Scotland is to support the sustainable expansion of Scotland’s Blue Economy. Their profits go to Scottish public spending, and they work with people and organisations to drive economic development and deliver social and environmental value.
 

Crown Estate Scotland’s Energy & Infrastructure team, led by Colin Palmer, is responsible for managing the seabed on behalf of the Scottish people, relating to areas such as offshore wind, wave & tidal energy, cables (electrical and telecommunications) & pipelines (oil & gas), and Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS). As such, they have a vital role to play in enabling and achieving Scotland’s net-zero aspiration.

Crown Estate Scotland has recently announced the outcome of its application process for ScotWind Leasing, the first Scottish offshore wind leasing round in over a decade and the first ever since the management of offshore wind rights was devolved to Scotland. 

The results coming just months after Glasgow hosted the global COP26 climate conference show the huge opportunity that Scotland has to transform in the renewable energy sector and move towards a net-zero economy.
 

Highlights include: 

• 17 projects have been selected out of a total of 74 applications, and have now been offered option agreements which reserve the rights to specific areas of seabed   
• A total of just under £700m will be paid by the successful applicants in option fees and passed to the Scottish Government for public spending

The Recruitment Challenge 

Crown Estate Scotland was looking to increase the size of its team substantially, recruiting 7 new offshore wind jobs. This is a time of growth and expansion for Crown Estate Scotland and Eden Scott was appointed after a thorough tendering process to deliver their recruitment campaign 

The Recruitment Solution 

Upon award, following a public competitive tendering process, Stuart Mitchell, Business Manager, Iain Atkinson, Associate Director and Ewan Anderson, Marketing Director met initially with key stakeholders within Crown Estate Scotland, namely, Colin Palmer, Director of Marine, Fiona Haywood, Senior HR Manager and Isla Baker, HR Advisor to discuss the campaign, marketing material, recruitment methodology and agreed on the timeline for deliverables. 

Separately, both Stuart and Iain met with Colin McIver, Head of Offshore Wind Development, Sian Wilson, Head of Offshore Development (Emerging Tech and Infrastructure) and Mark McKean, Senior Asset Manager to get a better understanding of the roles and their requirements and ascertain the key requirements for each offshore wind job.
 
Eden Scott commissioned a video to showcase the work of Crown Estate Scotland which can be viewed here, (Video), and developed a campaign page where all the relevant job information would be held to ensure the candidate journey was simplified and devised a marketing strategy for advertising the roles to sit alongside Eden Scott’s sourcing activities.  

Recruitment Success 

Eden Scott focused on creating a strong partnership with Crown Estate Scotland, acting as an extension to their existing team with open communication throughout the entire process. The process of sourcing, screening and presenting shortlisted candidates moved at speed and Crown Estate Scotland completed a 2-stage interview process before confirming appointments.  Eden Scott were successful in placing all 7 offshore wind jobs, with offers made within 10 weeks of the campaign going live.  The key appointments are:

• Development Manager (Agreements)
• Development Manager (Leasing) 
• Development Manager (Enabling) 
• Development Manager (Supply Chain) 
• Development Manager (Integration & Transition) 
• Development Manager (Gas Storage & Pipelines)
• Asset Manager 

As part of our framework award, Eden Scott has been appointed to work with Crown Estate Scotland’s Energy & Infrastructure team for an initial 2-year term and will continue to support their development in future campaigns.
 

Colin Palmer, Director of Marine

Our E&I team are passionate about what we do and achieving our goals, which has created a strong team culture and great working environment. In expanding our team we are looking for people who share this passion – that reflect our values of Integrity; Collaboration; Commercialism and Excellence; and that want to make a real difference.I hope you will consider joining us as the adventure unfolds, and share our excitement at playing our part in a successful, sustainable Scotland.