Offshore projects 2026: how contractors can break in

2 July 2026
2 minutes
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The global wind sector is projected to need hundreds of thousands of additional skilled workers this decade — here is how a UK contractor gets into offshore work without falling foul of the compliance requirements.

Why offshore is hiring

Offshore wind, decommissioning and subsea cabling are all scaling at once, and all three compete for the same technical skills. The shortage is not of people willing to work offshore; it is of people who can be mobilised compliantly at short notice.

That is good news for a contractor who prepares in the right order.

What operators actually check

Valid offshore survival and medical certification, in date on the day of mobilisation rather than on the day of application.
A verifiable work history, ideally with references reachable within a day.
Right to work evidence that stands up to inspection, including any time limits on it.
A payment model the operator’s supply chain can accept — increasingly, an employment model rather than a personal service company.

Getting the paperwork ahead of the work

Certification is the usual bottleneck, and it is the one part that cannot be compressed once an opportunity appears. Booking survival and medical training before an offer exists is what turns a two-month lead time into a two-week one.

The same is true of status: knowing how you will be engaged, and having a compliant provider already in place, removes the delay that costs most contractors the first offer.

Where we fit

We employ offshore contractors directly, which closes the status question for the operator and gives the contractor continuous employment across assignments and operators.

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Daniel Okafor

leads contractor payroll operations at Promultis

Daniel Okafor runs the payroll operation that pays several thousand contractors every week, and he built most of it. He joined Promultis from a large umbrella provider, where he was responsible for RTI submissions and auto-enrolment across a book of forty agencies. Daniel works closely with recruitment partners on onboarding, same-day payments and the reporting hirers need for their own audits. He writes about the practical side of contractor engagement — the parts that decide whether a worker stays past their first assignment.