Military Jobs Fair to Address Subsea Skills Challenges
21 November 2012
Business leaders will highlight exciting subsea career opportunities in the energy industry for ex-military personnel at a high-profile seminar tomorrow (Thursday, 22 November) in Elgin.
Subsea UK’s event, supported by DECC, will provide the region’s high concentration of ex-military personnel with the opportunity to learn of the long-term and diverse career opportunities in the fast growing subsea industry.
Member companies Frazer Nash, ROVOP, Forum Energy Technologies, DOF Subsea, Ashtead Technology, AGR Seabed Intervention and GE Oil and Gas will showcase the full spectrum of the sector’s strength, both locally an internationally, as well as outlining the valuable, transferable skills that military personnel possess.
Neil Gordon, chief executive of Subsea UK, said: "Former military personnel have strong skill sets which match very well with, and can be transferred into, the subsea industry. Following the success of last year’s event, we are aiming to attract even more talent into the subsea industry by highlighting the great wealth of experience that former military personnel have and which allows a natural transition into the subsea industry.
"Attracting, retaining and developing the right skills to support the rapid growth of the industry has always been a challenge, the number of our member organisations presenting at this event only serves to underpin the importance of getting the right people into the industry to ensure a sustainable workforce supply.”
He added: "Subsea UK continues to push the skills agenda as a priority as we need even more skilled resources in years to come. We are seeing encouraging numbers of graduates and apprentices coming in to the industry through focused initiatives, but you cannot fast-track experience and transferring skilled professionals from the military into our workforce is one way of addressing the short-term problem.”
This event comes on the back of last year’s successful military jobs fair where several attendees found employment in the subsea industry, working in roles from ROV pilots to onshore support superintendents within a range of companies in the energy sector.
Steven Gray, managing director at ROVOP, which specialises in supplying high-performance ROVs to the energy industry, said: "Subsea is a vibrant industry where people can carve out successful, life-long careers on a global platform. As a fast-growing company which has won a series of contracts and expanded its fleet of ROVs, we want to add significantly to our talent pool. The Subsea UK careers fair enables us to engage with ex-military personnel who possess the necessary expertise and experience that can be transferred to our specialist ROV subsea offering.”
More than 50 people have signed up to take part in the event at the Laich Moray Hotel, Elgin, on Thursday, 22 November, from 10am.
The subsea industry now generates about £6 billion in annual revenues and employs 50,000 people, as one of the fastest growing and exciting industry sectors in the UK with the potential for further growth there are significant employment opportunities available with the capability to generate more wealth and sustainable jobs across the UK.
