Aberdeen has been the centre of the UK's offshore energy industry for half a century, and it is now where the move away from oil and gas is being worked out in practice. For anyone studying energy or engineering, that proximity is the argument: the companies, the test facilities and the people setting the industry's direction are in the same city as the lectures.
What RGU teaches
Robert Gordon University runs one of the UK's deepest energy postgraduate portfolios, and it is unusually specific — these are not general engineering degrees with an energy module bolted on.
- MSc Oil and Gas Engineering
- MSc Drilling and Well Engineering
- MSc Renewable Energy Engineering
- MSc Energy Management
- MSc Energy Transitions and Sustainability
- MSc IT for the Energy Industry
- MSc Engineering, and MSc Engineering Management
- MSc | LLM Oil, Gas and Renewable Energy Law
- LLM Law and Energy Law
- MBA Energy and Transitions
- EngD Doctor of Engineering
Two of them are Energy Institute-accredited, which is worth checking against your own professional registration plans. RGU's energy postgraduate courses.
Several of these take January entrants as well as September ones — see the January 2027 guide.
What the University of Aberdeen teaches, and runs
Aberdeen's taught side includes MSc Energy Transition Systems and Technologies and MSc Subsea Engineering, alongside petroleum, renewable and advanced mechanical engineering programmes.
Its research asset is the National Decommissioning Centre, a partnership between the University, the Net Zero Technology Centre and industry, and part of the Aberdeen City Region Deal. It is at Newburgh in Aberdeenshire rather than in the city, and it holds facilities you will not find on a normal campus — a marine simulator and an underwater laser cutting system among them.
Its work spans "decommissioning technologies, predictive modelling, environmental assessment, economic modelling and law and regulation", across oil and gas, nuclear and renewables. The National Decommissioning Centre.
Decommissioning is not a glamorous word, and it is one of the largest engineering problems the North Sea has: several hundred structures that have to come out, safely, at a cost somebody has to model.
Why being here matters
Energy is not a subject Aberdeen teaches at a distance. The operators, the subsea engineering firms, the decommissioning specialists and the floating wind developers have offices in the city, which is what makes placements, site visits, guest lectures and a part-time job in the industry ordinary rather than exceptional.
It also means your lecturers tend to have worked in it, and that the people at a careers fair are hiring in the city you already live in.
Living here while you do it
A taught masters is nine to twelve intense months, and most of the people on one have done a degree already and want somewhere quiet to work. A studio gives you your own kitchen and your own door; an en-suite room gives you a kitchen with people in it. Both have a desk, and the building has a gym and a common room for when the library is finished with you.
Every bill, the internet and contents insurance are included, which on a one-year course means one less thing to set up and close down.
See what is availableRGU's Garthdee campus is a direct bus from the end of the road, and the University of Aberdeen is reachable by bus or bike — the getting to university guide has the honest times for both.