Below is my reply to a private message I received from a Diver wishing more career info on the Reports Coordinator position.
If you want to be a Reports Coordinator, you can apply to a company with your diver qualifications, this position would be report writing only. To be fully qualified Inspection personnel you have to complete the CSWIP 3.4u course and exam. This can be done in either England or Thailand (see http://www.twi.co.uk for more info on the course).
If you decide on the latter, you would start out as a data recorder, recording the info from the diver or ROV. This info would be then passed onto the coordinator who would check the info, inform the client of any problems and depending on the job/company enter the info into the report or pass it onto the reports writer.
When you take the course a lot of the paper work is written manually, however in the real world this is not the case. Most of the data is electronically recorded (digital video and PC generated data systems). There are specialist courses for some of the data systems; it’s up to you if you want to do these courses too (Visual Soft, COABIS, Netlink’s IME, etc.).
These days you need to be PC literate and familiar with the basics of PC operations and use of software such as MS Word, Excel, etc. as a minimum.
Demand for data recorders…yes there is a demand for good personnel, there always is. Pay scale, again this depends on how experienced you are and what company/agency you work for. I guess in the North Sea you could start around £250/day, possibly more.
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