Commercial Diving

[lord-of-creation]

Does anyone have any experience of this, be it inshore or offshore diving?

I've been reading the following website and specifically this http://www.theunderwatercentre.co.uk/coursedescrip...

It is a £13,000 course which basically trains you up in 13 weeks. Quite expensive but given what you can be paid when you have experience under your belt, then the initial outlay could be well worth it.

Obviously working as a commercial diver carries its risks which is why pay rates can be so high.

The thing that concerns me the most is whether there is work out there? Would be interesting to hear from someone in this field of work

[jeebus]

I don't know how true this is, but I read somewhere that it is one of the most difficult jobs out there to get into, I tried to join the navy as a diver about 8 years ago and they told me there was around a 4 year waiting list. Don't want to discourage you at all, but be carefull before handing over 13 grand to a "we can teach you everything in x amount of weeks" set up.

[TFatC]

I work in the oil industry mainly with ROVs but occasionally divers. There is a demand for divers, but nothing like it was, and will continue to diminish as oil is deeper than diving can go. Most diving work is on the old fields, and as these are exhausted.....

Also, there is very much an old boys network and it appears to be who you know, not what you know. There used to be a culture of "bungs" for sat diving work, although have not heard of this for a few years now. Finally, remember that whilst a sat diver gets a good day rate (about 1400 UKP a day), air divers are on much less even in the north sea. Many sat divers get about 30 days work a year in sat, obviosly others get more. I have recently heard of north sea divers taking work in west africa for 180 a day due to a shortage of work in the north sea.

Personally, I would think twice before entering the industry, and make sure you know what it involves. It is not a glamorous industry, and could you live for 28 days, with up to 7 other divers, under pressure, in a 6 foot diameter, 30 foot long tube? There is not enough money in this world to get me to do a sat divers job.

[Dupont666]

I had the option of going into the Oil industry as it was a dream of mine, but my father persuaded me not to as the oil wasnt going to last and he had had all the perks but they were no going to last.

He is a multi lateral driller for one of the big companies and currently drills out in Gabon/Cameroon/Congo and says there is not much work left and its all H&S all the way now...

He is right its all gone now... no more using the boss's boat for fishing, no more nice living in the arse end of nowhere, etc...

you might find some other job but the oil industry is now a dying horse, plus its saturated with army divers that means you have no chance as a newbie.... maybe go into the army first and see what happens.

[dingg]

ex commercial diver here - loads of people take the course and fail to get a job , depends what your background is really , if you,re a well qualified ndt, engineer , coded welder etc etc you may be lucky and land a job , otherwise forget it... the schools will be happy to take your cash.

I was lucky I got sponsorship and the job lead onto other opportunities offshore

divers a few years ago got a 43% pay rise over 2 or 3 years after going on strike , since then the dive companies have put lots of people through courses the market is oversupplied at the moment to stop the chance of a strike again in the future , the companies will not be caught with their trousers down again

good luck whatever you decide

[saffa27]

I looked at doing this about a month ago at the same school, did alot of research into it & thing that kept poping up is that Diving is just a way to get to the jobsite. You need have experience with trades, as Dingg says welding, NDT, engineering, etc.

Have a look on www.cdiver.net, most people on the forum repeat what Dingg says.

I decided against it in the end, £13k for the course and then having to compete with out of work experienced divers trying to get a job..

Good luck if you do it though!

[PimpmyHotwheels]

jeebus said:

I don't know how true this is, but I read somewhere that it is one of the most difficult jobs out there to get into, I tried to join the navy as a diver about 8 years ago and they told me there was around a 4 year waiting list. Don't want to discourage you at all, but be carefull before handing over 13 grand to a "we can teach you everything in x amount of weeks" set up.

It's a 2 year waiting list. Not that long