Shore jobs for marine engineers and ETOs: salaries, portals and CV keywords

Salary questions are the ones I get asked most and the ones most guides answer worst. Somebody quotes a number with no country attached, or publishes a confident figure for a role where no credible data exists at all.

So here are six shore roles that genuinely suit engineers and ETOs, with the figures I could verify, country by country. Where reliable data does not exist, this guide says so instead of guessing. That is less satisfying to read and considerably more useful when you are planning a move.

1. Commissioning engineer

You supervise installation and testing of electrical propulsion and power management systems on new builds, running Factory, Harbour and Sea Acceptance Tests before handover to the yard and the classification society. For an engineer who has spent years fault finding on live machinery, the work is familiar. The setting is not.

Where to look: careers.wartsila.com, ABB careers, focusengineering.nl, LinkedIn Jobs and Indeed.

What belongs on your CV: FAT, HAT and SAT experience, electrical propulsion systems, power management systems, classification society liaison (name DNV, ABS or Lloyd's Register if you have worked with them), shore power integration, sea trials supervision, fault finding, and shipyard handover documentation.

2. Marine insurance underwriter

You assess hull, machinery and offshore energy risk for insurers, building a portfolio and working closely with brokers. Engineers almost never consider this route, which is exactly why it is worth considering. Underwriting a machinery claim is easier when you have stripped that machinery yourself.

Where to look: simplify.jobs for the AIG graduate programme, Lloyd's market recruiters, Indeed, Glassdoor and LinkedIn.

What belongs on your CV: hull and machinery, risk assessment, portfolio management, broker relationships, Lloyd's market familiarity, offshore energy and renewables risk, and the basics of treaty versus facultative reinsurance.

3. P&I club correspondent or claims handler

You handle claims and casualty support for Protection and Indemnity clubs: cargo damage, personal injury, pollution, collisions. The instinct you built troubleshooting problems at three in the morning transfers directly.

Be careful with salary data here, because generic "claims handler" benchmarks badly undersell what a P&I specific role pays, and the headline figures you find online usually describe a different job to the one you would be applying for.

Figures for the UK, Greece, Hong Kong, Japan, Norway and the USA exist in Spinnaker's biennial P&I salary benchmarking report, which is a genuine industry reference, though the detail is not published openly and you would need to request it directly.

Where to look: MSIG careers, seacareer.com, navis-consulting.com, spinnaker-global.com, Indeed and JobStreet.

What belongs on your CV: FD&D, casualty response, cargo and crew and personal injury claims, correspondent network experience, maritime law familiarity, claims file management, and member or broker relationship management.

4. Offshore wind electrical technician

You maintain subsea power cables and turbine electrical systems. ETOs are in genuine demand here, because the industry is scaling faster across Europe than it can train people, and high voltage experience at sea is directly relevant.

Where to look: careers.vestas.com, crewbase.pro, James Fisher careers, naturalpower.com and Indeed.

What belongs on your CV: GWO certification, and say it explicitly because it is essential rather than optional, medium and high voltage systems, turbine service and maintenance, HSE compliance, working at height, and CTV or SOV rotation experience.

5. Marine warranty surveyor

You approve offshore lifts, tows and rig moves before insurers will cover them. The work is niche, well paid and almost never advertised publicly, which tells you something about how people get into it.

On pay, I would rather be straight with you: the UK general "offshore surveyor" benchmark averages £37,500, but that is not specific to marine warranty surveying, and no country specific figure for this role could be verified anywhere credible. In practice the role sits senior enough that it is usually paid through day rate consultancy contracts rather than a published salary band. Do not expect to find a clean number quoted anywhere.

Where to look: firstpointgroup.com, wtsenergy.com and LinkedIn.

What belongs on your CV: MWS approval experience, marine operations manual review, lift plan approval, towage approval, met-ocean data analysis, classification society interface, and offshore loadout or sail away certification.

6. Contract engineer in offshore energy

You manage technical contracts and vendor scopes for offshore energy projects across wind, oil and gas, and subsea infrastructure. No benchmark is published under this exact title. In practice, day rates track the same range as commissioning contract work, £550 to £1,800 a day depending on seniority and whether the work is onshore or offshore North Sea.

Where to look: airswift.com, wtsenergy.com, LinkedIn and Indeed.

What belongs on your CV: integrated control and safety systems, vendor scope management, technical contract negotiation, offshore project lifecycle, and FEED familiarity.

Five things that decide whether your CV gets read

1. 1.Lead with a bridging summary. Two or three lines translating your sea time into shore language. For example: 12 years as Chief Officer including hands on electrical systems troubleshooting, now moving into commissioning engineering.
2. 2.Use the exact keywords from the job advert. Applicant tracking systems scan for them before a human sees your application, so reframe your experience in the advert's own terminology rather than listing ranks and vessels.
3. 3.Get one relevant certification before you apply. GWO for offshore wind, ACII or CII for insurance, ICS papers for P&I and chartering adjacent roles.
4. 4.Quantify everything you can. Reduced downtime by a percentage, managed claims worth a figure, commissioned a number of vessels. Numbers stand out in a stack of generic CVs.
5. 5.Keep it to two pages, reverse chronological, with certifications near the top. Your CoC, STCW and any shore credentials belong in a clearly separated section at the top, not buried on page two.