Ian I posted a very similar question a few weeks ago, I too am looking to expand my qualifications portfolio and shall be very keen to see what responses you get. I only got one refering me to a past post which I couldn't find using the search function so good luck. Stu

I sat the course two weeks ago, I thought it was pretty good and very similar to the NEBOSH Fire Certificate. It covered both onshore and offshore installations but the lecturer didn't have a back ground in off shore so the course and his materials focused on onshore

Stuart most employers state you must have experience offshore, this is always a problem with newcomers to the industry. How can you get experience if you can't get offshore to gain the experience

It should help there is an offshore section here hsejobs.proboards.com

Hi all My experience here is that it can be relatively easy to get an onshore role, HSE Advisor or similar, with an offshore company, contractor, service company, etc, or if really lucky with an operator. This will give you an 'in' and often the opportunity to visit offshore installations for audits, inspections, deliver training, etc From there, you can decide whether or not being offshore on rotation is really for you and then sit it out till the right opportunity presents, which is few and far betwen I would add. As for the relevance of your qualifications, this depends on the companys' own stance, but I broke in with NGC and have trained up since then, training being a big part of the offshore oil and gas business as competence is a key area of compliance in this business, as in most MAH industries I guess. Environmental quals are always a bonus, this being an area where this business aims a lot of resources at. In short, there are many onshore roles in the oil and gas sector and only a few actually offshore, investigate all if you can and when you have got in to the business, then you can expand and maneouvre yourself into the role which suits you best. Of course, it's likely that you would need to be local to the area if you want an onshore non-rotational role Good luck with it.

Stuart, just about everyone in O&G is certified to 9/14/18 therefore a lead auditor cert in one or more would be beneficial. I have all 3 plus NGC/PGC, however I think it was my experience that got 'me in'. Theres plenty of work going in Aberdeen and NE Scotland, however its expensive to live here and the roads/traffic are the worst in Europe, nae the World...

In my experience, the NGC is what employers in the oil & gas industry ask for. This will probably always be the base line standard and if you also have the O&G cert then that is an added bonus. As mentioned above, working onshore first is probably your best option as it is here where you can learn processes, equipment and terminology that is relevant to this industry. Enviro cert is an advantage as enviro issues are now given the same amount of importance as H&S and clients are now stipulating that you must have HSE management systems in place to even tendor for work. Lead auditor certificates are becoming necessary for 9001, 14001 & 18001 mainly to carry out supplier audits. API Q1 (ISO/TS 29001) is another standard you could look into (similar to 9001 but with extra supplementary requirements) as this is specific to the oil & gas industry. Opportunities are there though and it may be worthwhile uploading you CV to a website such as oilcareers.com.