Working Underwater

Have you thought about a career that involves working in the underwater environment? With more and more emphasis being placed on making use of the oceans' vast resources and exploiting those buried beneath the seabed, there are many new exciting career opportunities available.

Despite what you may have heard through the media, oil and gas will continue to be our main source of energy for many years to come. What has happened though is that offshore production of this commodity has now moved into deeper waters demanding a completely new approach involving the use of remotely operated and robotic machines. In UK waters, oil is now being produced from reservoirs located to the west of the Shetlands in waters over 500m deep. Offshore Brazil they are producing oil in waters close to a depth of 2000m!

You may be surprised that the vast majority of global communication (e.g. the Internet) takes place using optical fibre lines laid between the continents on the ocean bed - not through the use of satellites. Laying these lines at such great depths demands the ultimate in underwater technology and positioning techniques.

Oil or gas is not the only commodity of value that lies beneath our oceans; there is a wealth of minerals scattered about the seafloor. Although at present the undersea mining of such deposits is not financially viable, the future will eventually see a completely new activity in this field.

Harnessing the resources of the oceans will prove to be a major challenge for many years to come. With increasing concern over safety and the protection of the marine environment has come the need to improve our understanding of the role(s) that the oceans play in our living world. To achieve all of this, new technology will need to be developed and engineers, technologists and scientists from a wide range of disciplines will have to work closely together.

To enter this exciting field in a professional capacity ideally you would need to have an honours degree in an engineering related subject, for example mechanical engineering, electrical/electronic engineering, materials engineering, civil engineering or chemical engineering, or in one of the sciences. This means that you need to have a suitable combination of A levels, e.g. maths and physical sciences or engineering.

March 2002

For further information contact: Your careers officer