Like several oil and gas firms working in the north-east, Aker Solutions wants to add hundreds of people to its workforce in the coming years.
The oil field service group has taken on 350 people in less than 12 months, but that is still not enough and the company has launched a recruitment drive for another 500 in and around Aberdeen over the next two years. If it is successful it would take Aker’s north-east workforce to around 3,200, making it one of the area’s biggest employers.
Matt Corbin, managing director of Aker’s subsea business in the UK, said his division alone wanted to take on nearly 200 workers.
The 38-year-old concedes the oil and gas industry’s current skills shortage is going to make it tough for Aker to attract the people it needs, but said he was confident the company could hit its targets.
“We are focusing on our graduate, apprenticeship and undergraduate recruitment and we are also looking to take on people from outside the oil and gas industry,” he said.
“Poaching someone from a competitor isn’t going to work any more – they will just poach someone back. We are in a sector where everyone should be doing more to recruit and retain their employees.”
Mr Corbin said Aker was changing its approach to bidding for work as well, and tendering only for contracts it knew it could immediately fulfil.
He said: “Typically this industry is reactive – companies get work and then catch up to deliver it.
“We want to change our culture so we already have the people and resources we need to deliver the work we are going for.” Mr Corbin said this might lead to Aker turning down work in some cases.
“Reliability of the product is becoming more and more essential, and to do that we need to have the resources in place,” he said, adding: “The dangers of not delivering work on time and on budget are too great. The top priority we have right now is delivering our commitments. We have more than 30 ‘frame’ agreements with UK customers and it is critical we continue to serve them, because they see us through the tough times as well.
“Nobody likes turning down work – it is always a tough decision – but fortunately most of the time we find a way around it.”
Bournemouth-born Mr Corbin is now on his second stint with Aker having started his career with FSSL, a company which became part of the Norwegian group. Before he had even gone to university, Mr Corbin was travelling the world, thanks to a gap year in Honduras, where he taught English as a foreign language.
He said: “It was a fantastic experience – It was quite informal, we were in a Spanish school where we might have two children in a class one day and then 30 and their parents the next.
“I was in a fairly safe part, but I have been told it is a lot more dangerous now than it was when I was there. Apparently there is a murder every 74 minutes in one of the towns I used to know.”
The Brunel University graduate said his time in Honduras also led to a passion for scuba diving, which helped shape his future career after his interest in “what goes on under the water” and engineering led him into subsea operations. Mr Corbin moved from Middlesex to Aberdeen – where he lives with his wife, Anne, and two-year-old son Jamie – to become a financial controller at Vetco Gray UK. He also worked for GE Oil & Gas before rejoining Aker Solutions in February this year.
Mr Corbin said he believed he had come back to Aker Solutions “in the right place and at the right time”.
He said: “It felt like Aker was about to start a new chapter in its history and I wanted to be part of it.
“The North Sea is going through an interesting time right now and is a buoyant market at the moment. The majors are stepping up operations on a whole range of projects, the new majors like Taqa Bratani are continuing to develop and a lot of small independent operators are coming in to take on small tiebacks which have previously been uneconomical and are making them work.
“These three groups are creating demand in the short-term and opportunities in the long term for us.”
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