Offshore survey personnel – statistics for 2010

Published on 18 July 2012

For many years the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) has published information on how many people were working offshore in ROV and diving roles, now for the first time they have published similar information on offshore survey personnel.

“In early 2011 our Offshore Survey Division Management Committee decided that it would be beneficial to collect information on how many personnel were working offshore in survey-related roles, and how many of them were freelance personnel,” explains IMCA’s Chief Executive, Hugh Williams.

“The data represents the responses of just 28 offshore survey contractor members of IMCA, and as it is the first time this questionnaire has been circulated to them, some companies may not have had the data available – it will be interesting to see how the figures change when we produce the annual report for 2011.”

The figures show that in February 2010 there were 618 personnel in total, of which 10% were freelance; this figure rises to 904 in August, but by then almost 20% are freelance, showing that a significant part of the seasonal increase is from freelance personnel – a figure which is broadly typical for freelance personnel across a number of surveys.

“The figures are intended to provide a snapshot of how many people were working in offshore survey-related roles at a given time in the year, and whether or not they were staff or freelance,” says Hugh Williams. “Obviously, as the figures represent a snapshot, they do not take into account any major contract that may have been completed shortly before the days of the count, or one which may have started shortly after; neither do they include anyone on leave, sick or not working for any reason on the two given days in February and August.”

The goal is to bench mark total numbers of personnel, roles and locations of work as well as proportions of freelance personnel. Year-on-year we will be able to compare annual changes.

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