Human Capital and Digital Education in Kazakhstan’s Oil and Gas Sector

The purpose of the study is to identify patterns of human capital development in the oil and gas region of Western Kazakhstan and to assess the adaptive potential of educational programs of technical universities in the context of the transformation of industry competencies. The paper uses methods of comparative and correlation analysis, SWOT assessment of educational programs, content analysis of labor market data and expert interviews with representatives of industry enterprises. The results of the study indicate that the share of programs focused on the development of digital and environmental competencies is less than 35%. According to employers, graduates' qualifications do not fully meet modern production requirements. At the same time, there is a positive trend in the development of the areas of "digital engineering" and "automation of technological processes". The identified trends reflect not only structural changes in the field of education, but also deeper institutional shifts related to the digitalization of the economy. This contradiction between the supply and demand of personnel is due to the slow updating of educational standards and insufficient involvement of business in the development of training programs. The constructed model of the relationship between the level of digitalization of education and the quality of human capital made it possible to identify priority development trajectories until 2035: robotic systems, data management, energy-efficient technologies and sustainable production. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the proposal of an integrative model for analyzing the human capital of the oil and gas region, taking into account the digitalization of education and the sectoral characteristics of the regional labor market The results of the study can serve as a basis for the development of transformational models of engineering education in other resource regions of Central Asia.