Troubled offshore wind developer Ørsted to shed a quarter of its workforce

In a 9 October 2025 statement, the company said the job losses are a necessary part of an updated business plan. The redundancies will be effected by the end of 2027.

“The reasons for this are that the company will be focusing more on offshore wind in Europe, that a number of offshore windfarms will be finalised in the coming years, and that the company needs to improve its competitiveness,” said the statement.

Ørsted chief executive Rasmus Errboe said, “Today, we’ve told our employees that from now and until the end of 2027, we’ll be saying goodbye to many skilled and valued colleagues who’ve contributed greatly to Ørsted. 

“This is a necessary consequence of our decision to focus our business and the fact that we’ll be finalising a large construction portfolio in the coming years – which is why we’ll need fewer employees. 

“At the same time, we want to create a more efficient and flexible organisation and a more competitive Ørsted, ready to bid on new value-accretive offshore wind projects.”

Mr Errboe said the company is committed to maintaining its position as a market leader in offshore wind. “We need to ensure that offshore wind becomes a key element of Europe’s future energy mix and green transition. Therefore, we also need to reduce our costs for developing, constructing, and operating offshore windfarms in order to strengthen our competitiveness.”

Ørsted currently employs around 8,000 people globally, which matches its current high level of activity, but by the end of 2027, it expects to have a workforce of around 6,000 employees. 

Mr Errboe said the rightsizing of the organisation will happen through natural attrition, a reduction of positions, divestment, outsourcing and redundancies. As part of this, Ørsted has today announced that it will be making approximately 500 employees redundant in Q4 2025, including approximately 235 in Denmark. The company said that by the end of 2027, the organisation will be rightsized in parallel with the decline in construction activities.

“We are fully committed to finalising our 8.1-GW construction portfolio, Ørsted’s largest to date,” said Mr Errboe. “At the same time, we’re building a more financially robust and competitive company with solid earnings, which will increase as we complete our projects. Once we’ve achieved this, Ørsted will be a stronger, more focused and competitive company.”

Earlier this year, Ørsted announced a raft of initiatives to deliver on the company’s updated strategy and be in a stronger position in 2028. A recently completed rights issue has strengthened Ørsted’s capital structure, and the construction of the company’s offshore wind portfolio is progressing as planned. 

As part of its updated strategy, Ørsted has also sharpened its geographical and technological focus and will primarily be directing it towards offshore wind in Europe and in select markets in the Asia Pacific region.

Once all efficiency measures have been implemented, the annual cost savings from 2028 are expected to amount to approximately DKK2Bn.