Offshore industry in engineering recruitment drive

A national campaign has been launched to tackle the acute skills shortage facing the UK's oil and gas industry.

Industry body, Subsea UK, has issued a stark warning about the real threat to the oil and gas industry unless more professional engineers and graduates are not recruited, as it launched CREST, a major recruitment campaign to tackle the problem.

The campaign has the backing of key industry players such as BP, JP Kenny, Acergy and Technip.

CREST - critical requirement for engineering subsea talent - aims to tackle the serious situation facing one of the fastest growing sectors of the UK economy by targeting other industries as a source of new talent.

Subsea UK, which represents 130 companies operating mainly in the UK's subsea oil and gas industry, estimates that 3000 engineers are needed worldwide in the next five years.

Of these about 1000 are urgently needed in the UK so that it can retain its place at the forefront of a global market which is about to undergo explosive growth.

UK-based market analyst, Douglas Westwood, predict that the global deepwater oil and gas market will almost triple in size from $8.5 billion in 2002 to $23 billion in 2010.

According to David Pridden, CEO, Subsea UK: "A recent study revealed that the UK leads the way in the global subsea oil and gas industry".

"However, the very real challenges of low profile, skills shortages and the development of new technology are constraining our ability to capitalise on a market which is set to more than double in the next few years".

"We must address these or risk losing out to international competition".

"It's not if, it's when; we face a ticking time-bomb over skills shortages, caused by an ageing workforce coupled with a lack of young people coming in to science and engineering careers".

The subsea industry, which involves highly sophisticated technology operating remotely under the world's oceans, will soon be responsible for recovering almost 40% of the remaining oil and gas reserves in the North Sea.

And with much of the world's reserves lying in more marginal fields, many in water depths of over 4000 metres, subsea technology provides the only viable and safe way of recovering them and ensuring security of supply.

Gerwyn Williams, joint Managing Director at JP Kenny and SSUK board member added: "Subsea UK's member companies are developing space age technology under water".

"At the moment, it is one of the most exciting industries to be in and we need to help get that message out there".

"We want people to think of subsea in the same way they think about NASA".

"It is an incredibly complex and challenging sector with rewarding and long-term career opportunities but few are aware of this".

"Helping the sector attract and develop people, including mature and young engineers and graduates, is a key priority for us".

In order to recruit quality engineers from other industries, the initiative will communicate with and aim to attract engineers in industries such as manufacturing, aerospace, marine and construction.

This is largely being achieved through a dedicate skills website, promotion via specially designed literature and a series of recruitment fairs where interested engineers will be matched with subsea companies seeking to recruit.

A menu of training courses is being created which recruiting companies can use to induct and develop new entrants to the sector.

Subsea UK will use a single industry voice to attract the best engineering graduates.

A campaign highlighting the attractive, dynamic, exciting and global opportunities in the sector along with subsea focused recruitment fairs at selected universities will aim to boost graduate recruitment in the sector.

Ron Cookson, General Manager, Technip said: "As a company at the core of the subsea industry, Technip believes it is fundamentally important that we demonstrate and promote much more effectively the exciting opportunities available in our industry to attract fresh talent from other sectors and from our universities so that we secure a workforce that can sustain the industry both now and in the future".

According to David Brookes, Programme Leader, BP: "Subsea production is becoming a much larger part of BP's portfolio".

"Our subsea and deepwater production rates will nearly double in the next five years and we see we need at least 50% more subsea engineers to handle the exciting challenges in the many future projects".

Antoinette Wilks, Group Engineering Development and Resourcing Manager, Acergy added: "The Subsea UK initiative is introducing engineers to our industry".

"Our global engineering population is growing by approximately 25% each year, with many opportunities in our different worldwide locations".

"The e:learning subsea course supports the first part of the induction process for engineers joining the industry".

"In addition to this Acergy then have a large development framework to support our employees to reach their potential".

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