Scotland's Marine Economic Statistics 2019

Statistics on the economic contributions of Scotland’s marine sectors in 2019. Includes a time series of Gross Value Added (GVA), turnover and employment for marine sectors. The supporting documents include: accessible tables, a summary topic sheet and a pdf version of the publication.


2. Marine Economy Overview

2.1 Marine economic key points

In 2019, the Scottish marine economy generated £5 billion in GVA: accounting for 3.4% of the overall Scottish economy. The Scottish marine economy provided employment for 75,490 people (headcount), contributing 2.8% of the total Scottish employment.

The oil and gas services sector is the biggest contributor to the marine economy in terms of turnover and GVA. However, marine tourism employs the most people of all the sectors covered in this report. Oil and gas services provide 38.6% of the marine economy GVA and 20.8% of the employment while marine tourism provides 11.9% of the GVA and 43.8% of the employment (see Table 1).

There are considerable variations in labour productivity (GVA per worker) across the marine economy, with freight water transport having the highest GVA per worker in 2019 (around £572,000), and marine tourism producing the lowest at around £18,000.

Oil and gas extraction is not included in these figures, although support services for oil and gas are included. This broadly aligns the figures with those provided by the onshore values in the National Accounts for Scotland. See Annex B section 18.7 for more information.

Table 1: Marine economic sectors – GVA, turnover, employment and GVA per head, 2019
Description GVA (millions of pounds) Turnover (millions of pounds) Employment headcount (thousands) GVA per head (pounds)
Fishing 329 596 4.9 67,257
Aquaculture 560 1,111 2.4 232,842
Support for oil & gas 1,945 4,527 15.7 123,885
Processing 390 1,707 6.8 57,368
Shipbuilding 408 1,094 6.3 64,825
Construction & water transport services 436 725 4.3 101,302
Passenger water transport 133 284 1.4 95,071
Freight water transport 229 385 0.4 572,250
Renting & leasing of water transport equipment 15 27 0.2 73,000
Marine tourism 598 1,111 33.1 18,076
Total 5,043 11,567 75.5 66,800

2.2 Marine economy trends

Between 2018 and 2019, the marine economy’s GVA increased by 12% from £4.5 billion to £5 billion (2019 prices). Employment increased by 0.4%.

Table 2: Marine sector - GVA, turnover and employment, 2010 to 2019 (2019 prices)
Year GVA (millions of pounds) Turnover (millions of pounds) Employment headcount (thousands)
2010 5,414 13,207 68.5
2011 4,914 13,162 69.9
2012 5,250 13,584 69.5
2013 5,283 14,148 74.0
2014 5,328 14,889 75.0
2015 5,113 14,418 79.1
2016 4,624 11,278 76.0
2017 5,413 12,154 74.5
2018 4,500 11,282 75.2
2019 5,043 11,567 75.5

SABS categories for oil and gas services changed in 2011 see Annex B section 18.7.

The longer term trend shows that between 2010 and 2019 the marine economy GVA (adjusted to 2019 prices) fell by 7% while employment increased by 10%.

Figure 1: Marine sector - GVA and employment, 2010 to 2019 (2019 prices)

The change in GVA from 2018 to 2019 is shown in Figure 2. The figures for the marine economy by industry are shown in Table 20 on page 50.

Figure 2: Marine sector – Change in GVA by sector, 2018 to 2019 (2019 prices)

2.3 Marine economy by geography

The values presented at local authority level are mostly based on SABS data. Most values can be provided by local authority, though some become disclosive at this level and are aggregated into the ‘unallocated’ category. The methodology for combining values from the different sources is detailed in Annex B: Methodology and source data.

Aberdeen City accounted for £1.9 billion (37%) of the marine economy’s GVA for 2019, with Aberdeenshire the next highest with £884 million (18%) (Table 3). Highland contributed 6% of the marine GVA and 13% of the employment.

The biggest change in GVA (value not percentage) from 2018 to 2019 was in the Aberdeen City local authority (Table 23). This is due to changes in oil prices causing an increase in turnover for the for oil and gas support services. The second biggest change was in Fife local authority and is likely due to shipbuilding. This is discussed in more detail in the shipbuilding chapter.

Table 3: Marine sector – Gross value added ( GVA), turnover and employment (headcount), by local authority, 2019
Local authority GVA (millions of pounds) Turnover (millions of pounds) Employment headcount (thousands) GVA (percentage of Scotland total) Turnover (percentage of Scotland total) Employment headcount (percentage of Scotland total)
Aberdeen City 1,888 4,159 15.2 37% 36% 20%
Aberdeenshire 884 2,104 8.9 18% 18% 12%
Angus 45 93 1.1 1% 1% 1%
Argyll & Bute 154 363 5.9 3% 3% 8%
City Of Edinburgh 50 135 1.5 1% 1% 2%
Clackmannanshire 1 3 c 0% 0% c
Dumfries & Galloway 59 148 2.3 1% 1% 3%
Dundee City 21 33 0.6 0% 0% 1%
East Ayrshire 1 2 c 0% 0% c
East Dunbartonshire c c c c c c
East Lothian 32 67 1.5 1% 1% 2%
East Renfrewshire c c c c c c
Falkirk c c 0.7 c c 1%
Fife 146 367 5 3% 3% 7%
Glasgow City 198 c 4.1 4% c 5%
Highland 291 672 10 6% 6% 13%
Inverclyde 87 150 1.6 2% 1% 2%
Midlothian c c c c c c
Moray 29 78 1.1 1% 1% 1%
Na H-Eileanan Siar 48 144 1.8 1% 1% 2%
North Ayrshire 47 101 1.6 1% 1% 2%
North Lanarkshire 7 21 0.2 0% 0% 0%
Orkney Islands 43 89 1.4 1% 1% 2%
Perth & Kinross 7 23 0.5 0% 0% 1%
Renfrewshire 39 69 1.5 1% 1% 2%
Scottish Borders 32 5 1.2 1% 0% 2%
Shetland Islands 139 294 2 3% 3% 3%
South Ayrshire 36 58 1.2 1% 1% 2%
South Lanarkshire -1 c c 0% c c
Stirling 15 26 0.7 0% 0% 1%
West Dunbartonshire 23 31 0.5 0% 0% 1%
West Lothian 4 10 0.1 0% 0% 0%
Unallocated 720 2,323 3.3 14% 20% 4%
Scotland 5,043 11,567 75.5 100% 100% 100%

The letter ‘c’ denotes disclosive data.

GVA and employment in the marine sector is particularly important to rural economies. Figure 3 shows the proportion that the marine sector contributes to each local authority’s GVA and employment. The marine sector contributes most to the Shetland Islands, accounting for 19% of the total GVA in Shetland and 17% of employment in 2019.

Figure 3: Percentage of overall employment and GVA accounted for by the marine sector by local authority, 2019

Scottish Government (Marine Scotland) 2022. © Crown copyright and database right

Contact

Email: MarineAnalyticalUnit@gov.scot

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