Overview
All diving in the UK – including paid instruction of sports diving but excepting amateur dives – is regulated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), and the key legislation is the Diving at Work Regulations 1997. These cover all dives during which one or more divers are working. It is regarded as a highly hazardous activity and recent figures suggest that, on average, there are three fatal diving accidents a year. Many of these are members of the public completing recreational diving. However, the risks can be significantly reduced by adhering to regulations and adopting established good practice. Those undertaking training are advised to have a medical check even when it is not mandatory to do so.

There are two separate, although linked, areas of diving: commercial and sports. Commercial diving is about underwater activities that are part of a business. Sports or recreational, diving is simply exploring the undersea world for enjoyment and personal challenge, although many of the people managing the facilities and running the sports clubs are doing so as a business. Many individuals progress from sports diving to commercial diving, including sports diving instruction, or do both.

Diving skills gained in the Services
The Defence Diving School is where all RN and Army divers are trained. Some RN divers are full-time, but most of them, and all Army divers, have primary jobs and dive only when it is required.

All the School’s courses lead to an HSE-approved qualification, although some additional training may still be required to achieve commercial certification for offshore diving, and vocational qualifications may also be awarded. Links with sports diving organisations are strong, and the School is a British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC) (see below) school in its own right. Individuals are able to gain civilian qualifications there for a relatively small investment in time and training.

A number of Service units have sports diving clubs, where novices and enthusiasts alike can gain qualifications and progress through the various grades. However, only the Defence Diving School teaches those elements of military diving that are relevant to commercial diving.

Commercial diving
With the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1960s, the offshore industry needed divers. Currently, the oil and gas industry is one of the largest employers of divers in UK waters and in most other parts of the world. Other projects that require divers are:

• harbour repair and construction
• demolition and salvage
• search, recovery and survey
• fire and rescue services
• and, more recently, in the renewables sector.

• Offshore diving is associated with the exploration and exploitation of subsea oil and gas resources worldwide. The industry tends to be dominated by a small number of huge, internationally based companies with diving operations usually subcontracted. Few contractors maintain a large permanent diving workforce, so appropriately qualified and experienced individuals move from field to field.
• Inshore divers are usually employed in ports and coastal regions, in jobs associated with marine civil engineering. Contracts tend to be relatively short ‘one-offs’ and so offer less security than offshore work. However, harbour repairs, the construction of new sewage outfalls to comply with European regulations, film-making, and an upsurge in scientific and archaeological work all provide opportunities.

Qualifications
Typically, individuals have some diving experience with sports qualifications. Mechanical and engineering backgrounds can be useful in the handling of compressors, cutting equipment and associated plant welding. Formal commercial diver training is a must, with the HSE having four assessment standards of commercial diving competence: SCUBA Diving, Surface Supplied Diving, Surface Supplied Top Up Diving, and Closed Bell Diving.

1. SCUBA stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, where the air supply is in cylinders worn by the diver, and is generally used at shallow depths.
2. Surface supplied divers receive their air supply via an umbilical (hose) from the surface, to depths of 50m.
3. To dive offshore on surface supplied equipment, divers must also undertake a Surface Supplied Diving (Top Up) assessment, which involved diving in a ‘wet bell’ to depths down to 50m.
4. Closed bell divers use mixed gas in order to dive deeper than 50 metres. They can spend up to 28 days working (and living) in a compression chamber complex, transferring to the work site in a diving bell. To be eligible for a closed bell diving qualification a diver must have experience using surface supplied diving equipment and techniques.

Training for all types of diving is physically, mentally and emotionally demanding, and costs between £8,000 and £10,000 for a 10- or 12-week residential package, although many professional divers will progress through the system in phases.
 

Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs)

ROV pilot technicians use machines developed to recover objects lost at depths where divers could not operate. This usually involves them being located on the surface in a comfortable cabin from where they ‘fly’ the ROV – a nice alternative for those who don’t want to get wet!

There are two types of ROV: work and inspection. Work-class vehicles are giants capable of lifting a tonne or more, with the ability to do engineering work using robotic arms, and controlled from the surface by the operator or pilot, watching the robot’s TV camera display. Inspection-class vehicles are used mainly for observation tasks and as support to diving operations, but do have manipulator arm capability. Both are complex machines, and can cost £2 million or more to build and operate.

The main users are construction engineers, who use commercial divers in shallower depths (usually 50–100 metres), but at 200-plus metres the robot has the lower risk and better commercial return. Divers and ROVs often work together to complete complex tasks safely and cost-effectively.

Sports diving
The British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC) and the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) are the two leading authorities in the training and qualification of sports divers and sports diving instructors. Most instructors will hold BSAC or PADI qualifications, or both, while members will be working along a route towards more challenging dives and leading expeditions. Many of their qualifications are interchangeable, particularly at the lower levels.

The BSAC and PADI are in competition to some extent, although they work closely together in the development of standards and safety. Essentially, the former is an amateur organisation teaching people to enjoy diving on a not-for-profit basis, while the latter teaches people to become paid diving instructors at varying levels.

BSAC
The BSAC has a network of facilities, including more than 1,100 clubs and branches worldwide (branches are totally amateur, but the schools are commercial operations). Most Sports Divers in the Services will be BSAC members, having been taught their skills through local branches, starting as an Ocean Diver.

Having become Sports Divers people can advance to Dive Leader, Advanced Diver and First Class Diver through training and experience, and then take specialised skills development courses. A Sports Diver may attend the Instructor Foundation Course. Once qualified as a Dive Leader they may take the Theory Instructor exam, attend the Open Water Instructor Course and take the Practical Instructor exam. They can then progress to Advanced Instructor and National Instructor. There are also specialist and skills development courses available.

Newly qualified instructors earn the minimum wage but can gain significant experience by offering their services to schools and branches. After a season or so, UK rates of pay range from £50 to £110 per day. Overseas, the figure tends to be around £70 to £90 per day.

PADI
With more than 40 years’ experience, PADI has over 133,500 PADI Professionals and more than 6,000 dive shops and resorts worldwide. Military diving qualifications can enable their holders to cross over into the PADI system of diver education. For example, a Ships Diver with first aid training may be eligible to enrol directly on to a PADI Rescue Diver Course. For those who are not already divers, it is possible to move from entry level through to becoming an instructor in a year, because certification is based on competence not time spent in training.

Novices start as Open Water Divers (with an introductory course available), progressing to Advanced Open Water Diver, possibly also attending speciality diving courses. The next step is Rescue Diver, which can lead to Master Scuba Diver and/or to becoming a Divemaster – the minimum qualification to begin Instructor training. Instructor progression is through the grades of Assistant Instructor, Open Water Scuba Instructor, Speciality Instructor, Master Scuba Diver Trainer, Instructor Development Course (IDC) Staff Instructor and Master Instructor to Course Director. As with BSAC instructors, newly qualified instructors earn the minimum wage but by gaining relevant experience can significantly boost their earnings.

Career opportunities and earning potential
Newly trained commercial divers tend to begin their subsea careers working inshore or in civil engineering diving, working on harbour repairs, hull inspections or fish farms. Day rates for inshore work can range from £120 to £250, depending on the work and the diver’s experience.

Once more experience has been gained, and the diver has the Surface Supplied Top Up certification, they can look to get work offshore – in the North Sea, for example. Building this experience generally takes 12–18 months of inshore work. Many divers find having a 3.1U underwater inspection ticket also helps them to acquire offshore work. Day rates for such work, which could include pipeline inspection, fixing well-heads or flexible riser construction, can be from £450. Working on wind farm installation, which tends to be offshore, can command rates of £300-plus a day.

Once a commercial diver has obtained a specific number of working hours/dives they can then aim to achieve the next level of qualification as a mixed gas (or closed bell) diver, working at depths greater than 50m. Such divers work for up to 28 days in saturation in the North Sea. With this level of certification, divers can earn over £1,000 a day in the North Sea, or US$850 a day in the Far East.