News

World of opportunities for Ireland’s engineers

Demand for engineering skills is creating a wealth of opportunities for Ireland’s engineering community, according to a global energy services company.

Wood Group PSN (WGPSN), a leading service provider to the oil and gas industry is calling on experienced engineers in Ireland to consider transferring their skills to international energy projects in Australia, Middle East, Caspian and the UK.

The company, who already has roots in Ireland through Shanahan Engineering and MCS Kenny, is creating opportunities for engineers with five to 10 years experience to transfer skills from the pharmaceutical, petrochemical and heavy engineering sectors into oil and gas. In particular, WGPSN is looking to attract engineers in design, construction, operations and maintenance, project management and support disciplines such as project controls.

“We’re in a strong position globally and we are seeing a huge demand for highly skilled and experienced engineers,” said Jerome Lynch, international director for WGPSN. “As an industry we need to think innovatively about how we can move skills around, transfer expertise and develop global hubs of engineering excellence.

“I am from Cork myself and the pedigree of engineering skills in Ireland is especially high. We are recruiting for oil and gas contracts in Scotland, onshore projects in Oman and Abu Dhabi, upstream and downstream engineering projects across Australia as well as various projects in Russia and Kazakhstan.

“We’ve been looking at where some of the world’s best engineering talent is based and working hard to attract engineers from Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. If you have an engineering background the opportunities in global oil and gas couldn’t be better.”

Eibhlin Marsh, originally from County Derry, Northern Ireland is a process engineer with WGPSN in Melbourne, Australia. Speaking about the benefits of international work experience in the oil and gas sector, she said:

“I joined Wood Group’s graduate training programme back in 2005 and was promised opportunities to learn, grow and travel, and I certainly haven’t been disappointed.  I have worked for WGPSN in Aberdeen, Houston and now Australia. I began work here in our Perth office where I was the process engineer on a detailed design project for a major oil company. Then the opportunity came up to do a concept study for the same client in our Melbourne office and I went there with the intention of completing the job in four weeks. Thing is, I loved the work and I knew I could learn so much from the Melbourne studies group so I stayed.

“I enjoy working as part of an experienced team providing concept and front end engineering services to clients operating across Australia and the Asia Pacific region. I have broadened my technical knowledge considerably because of the diversity of work.”

Continuing, Eibhlin added:

“WGPSN supports the development of their engineers through further training and a structured approach to professional development. The opportunity to work overseas isn’t just about the professional benefits though, it’s a great life experience too. New cultures and the chance to experience a different way of life has been great, although I haven’t forgotten my roots and play Gaelic football for St Finbarrs, a local Australian team.”

WGPSN has employed over 5,000 new employees to its business in the last 12 months. This brings the company’s global workforce to over 25,000.

For further information about the career opportunities available at Wood Group PSN, please visit woodgroup-psn.com/careers or email: eddie.kellie@woodgroup.com 

Back >>