Drilling for service leavers
One industry where the skills of ex-servicemen and women are most welcome is oil & gas, in offshore and subsea specialisms in particular.
The UK subsea business of oilfield services firm Aker Solutions employs over 100 forces leavers. Division managing director Matt Corbin said they were “a very good match” for a high-risk environment where things “can’t go wrong”. Such candidates, he added, were not “treated in any special way… no different to any other recruit”.
Chris Finnigan is a senior health, safety and environment manager at Ceona, undertaking construction and projects in the oil & gas industry. Previously in the army’s Royal Engineers Corps, he said his service “gave me many of the technical skills needed for offshore projects, but it also prepared me for the structures and hierarchies of a commercial organisation”.
The Ministry of Defence’s Career Transition Partnership has hosted several oil-specific careers events for service people in the past 18 months, each attracting hundreds of jobseekers, with such hiring expected to grow in line with industry requirements.
