Swifty37

Hi everyone,
I'm new to the site, currently living in Sydney Australia ( originally from UK) we have been here 4 years, my husband is in the Navy. We have 2 children aged 1 and nearly 3, we have 18 months left on our contract here and are now starting to think of what's next and we both love Spain but can't decide on Alicante or Malaga, any advice would be appreciated.
My hubby wants out of the Navy after a long stretch and wants to do offshore work on the rigs instead.
My question is, does anyone have hubby's working offshore on the rigs and if so where abouts exactly? North Sea? North Africa? Also what firms do they work for? Is it 4 weeks on 4 weeks off?
We are just trying to gather info of company's to hit up with CV's and ideas of where they are located.
Any advice you have to get us started would be a huge help!
Thanks in Advance
Claire

Bri and Katee

Not personally but a close friend in our village works on the North Sea gas rigs. He does two weeks on and three weeks off - no annual leave or holidays. While I have never enquired as to his salary he does ok, think about it. He is flown off the North Sea into Humberside airport by helicopter. That airport has no flights except for package holidays to Spain, so he then has to commute to another airport to get flights back to Spain and vice versa. This could be Leeds, Manchester, East Midlands or even further afield.
The North Sea off the Yorkshire coast is mainly gas rigs and they are storage/pumping terminals, no drilling. Oil rigs are further up off the coast of Scotland, so basically flying into Aberdeen. Even taking into account the budget airlines he is spending in excess of 3-4 thousand a year on airfares and other commute costs like trains or rental cars to airports.
As to working on rigs nowadays its almost a closed shop and many certifcates in various aspects are required, he would have to pay for these before applying for jobs, those in post already get them paid for. For instance new regulations come into force in January regarding the exit from ditching helicopters. This means you have to be able to squeeze through the exit windows not just the doors. My friend say many are failing this in the dunk test due their physical size/overweight.

As to working on supply boats not a chance! There are currently 100 ships tied up in ports along the east coast with upwards of 2500 seafarers laid off, this is because of the downturn in the price of oil. Those ships that are still sailing have crews from the far east or India, in other words they are working for less than the companies would have to pay europeans. I can give you a facebook page to check out this aspect of working offshore.... https://www.facebook.com/groups/supplyboathistory/ its a closed group but if you are on facebook join it and check out the doom and gloom of workers on supply boats. Most work on boats at the moment is going on around Angola and the old Ivory Coast in Africa, the Gulf of Mexico and South America and of course the Far East, but these places all have laws in place that a certain percentage of the crews must come from the country in whose waters they are sailing/drilling.

I am not trying to put you off just spelling out the reality of the situation.

missile

Have you not heard there is a recession in the oil industry? Chances of a new recruit without qualification and experience finding work are close to zero.

Swifty37

Thanks so much for your advice! We have another 2 years left in Australia then will be back in the UK for a few months so hopefully things might have improved a bit by then! He has a lot of ex RN mates working offshore so he is going to do his qualifications Nebosh etc next year. His mates said they tend to favour ex navy as they have the experience of being at sea. My hubby was looking into safety officer work! We shall see, it's always good to hear the positives and negatives! Thanks again for your input

missile

Many see safety officer as an easy option. As a result, even in good times there are many more applicants than positions available. Perhaps his mates will be able to help and as you say things may change in 2 years time. How does he intend to do NEBOSH whilst in Australia?