Maintaining the maritime skills base: does the Government have a realistic strategy?

The UK has a requirement for people with seafaring expertise to fill a wide range of jobs in the maritime-related sector of the economy ashore. The pool of seagoing ships' officers has now reached the level where shore-based demand for such officers cannot be satisfied by natural wastage from this pool alone. This paper considers the implications of this for the Government's recently announced strategy for maintaining the maritime skills base. The paper concludes that it is inevitable that the Government's present strategy will fail, and suggests what measures need to be taken if the skills base is to be saved.