Norwegian oil services firm to expand in business park

International oil services company Aker Solutions is planning to create 200 new jobs in the next year at the company's newly established engineering office in Chiswick Business Park. The longer term plan is that this number will increase to 500 by 2015. The Chiswick office will be a global engineering hub will support field development projects for the North Sea and worldwide.

The move follows a successful start to the year for the oil and gas engineering and technology services company, which has increased its order backlog by 19 percent since January 1st. It says that market outlook for both the UK and Norwegian North Sea as well as Brazil, West Africa and Asia Pacific remains strong.

"Last year we decided to take a much more proactive recruitment approach. Since then our strategy has been to man up ahead of the big waves of work that we know are coming. That offers much greater predictability for our customers and ourselves," says Alan Brunnen, a managing director with Aker Solutions in Aberdeen.

"Our company has had a historical presence in London, so this is a re-entry to an engineering market we know very well. So far we have received more than 2,000 job applications, which underlines that there is scope to grow this business rapidly," says Valborg Lundegaard, head of engineering.

Alan Brunnen adds: "We anticipate that workload levels will remain high over the coming years, which is why we are staffing up our UK organisation now. We want to be well placed to capitalise on future opportunities that arise in our markets".

Aker Solutions is one of Scotland's largest employers with a workforce of more than 2,500 people. In addition the company has smaller offices and facilities in Great Yarmouth, Maidenhead, Stockton-on-Tees and Whitstable. The company employs 17 000 employees plus 6,000 contract staff in 30 countries worldwide, and has annual revenues of approximately GBP 3.9 billion.

August 19, 2011