Possible career change on the horizon. Climb regular for lesuire. Mechanical trade background. (Rail) Specifically looking at NDT turbine blades. Preferably on shore. Anybody in the industry and would be willing to share their experiences?

I am not a climber but I have worked with climbing teams a few times.

It seems that a lot of them are climbers for fun and use it to pay for trips away when on leave. Not all, a few just saw it as a way of earning decent money offshore.

However, it reminds me of the diving industry, which I do know about, you need to get your tickets and then take what ever work you can to build up your logbook. You might have to start doing “menial” work to get your foot in the door, cleaning seagull shit and stuff. I believe there is quite a lot of competition for the work and due to the decline of O&G, the people that used to do that are looking at offshore wind and stuff.

Hey buddy, I’m a level 3 RA in the oil and gas game. My email is in my profile. Drop me a line and I’ll happily chat to you about what I know. 👍👍

No email in profile.  Think new site layout? PM sent though. Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions.

I’m another IRATA L3 but feet firmly on the beach.

IRATA L1 ticket, then GWO tickets then some more stuff depending on the actual job you intend to do.

Where are you based? Belay is the name of a very good training venue down Shoreham way who do IRATA and GWO training.

I would caution that it is potentially expensive to get ‘ticketed up’ and all have expiry/reval requirements so it can be a bit of a gamble. The training providers will happily sell you all the courses you will pay for with little care over whether they are useful to you, IME.

Personally I would look at doing the IRATA L1 then looking for some onshore work, which as a newly qualified tech would most likely be window cleaning, geotechnical (drilling/netting/de-veg work) or the joys of riser/silo cleaning but apart from the jobs themselves you’d be gaining valuable rope hours and also deciding if a career spent handling off stuff is for you!

I stayed on shore as I like to be home in my own bed too much.

Mattbee, funny enough. I’ve always liked being away then having big chunks of time off. Though for different reasons I’m looking at onshore a bit more ATM. Tree surgery is catching my eye at the moment, good mate has a company which would keep me busy and see if I like it. Maybe trim those offshore trips down a bit. I’ll see 😀🙄

What he said ⬆️