Marine engineer
The officer responsible for a merchant ship's engines and machinery at sea. Entered through a Marine Engineering degree from a DG Shipping approved institute, with progression to Chief Engineer by certificate of competency.
- Work setting
- Ship engine rooms at sea, in contracts of six to nine months, with shore leave between
- Hours
- Watch-keeping shifts around the clock, every day of a contract
- Remote
- Usually no
- Travel
- Continuous - you live at the workplace for the length of the contract
- Qualification
- Marine Engineering degree from a DG Shipping approved institute, plus certificates of competency for each rank
- Read
- 1 min
Overview
Understand the role
A merchant ship is a power station, a water treatment plant and a factory that happens to float, and the marine engineer keeps all of it running with whatever is aboard. There is no calling someone out.
What the work involves
Day to day
Watch-keeping in the engine room, planned maintenance on main and auxiliary engines, fuel and lubricant management, troubleshooting failures at sea, and the paperwork that proves the machinery and the emissions comply. In port the work intensifies rather than stops.
Who should choose it
Fit
People who can fix things methodically under pressure and can genuinely tolerate long absence from home. If you want strong earnings soon after a degree and can accept the trade-off in family life, few routes match it. If the absence is a problem, no amount of pay fixes it.
The reality of the job
Read this one
Six to nine months aboard, watch-keeping around the clock, heat and noise, and the same forty people for the whole contract. Promotion runs on certificates of competency, which means studying between contracts rather than resting. Medical standards are strict and re-tested, so a condition that develops later can end the career. Shore jobs in surveying, superintendency and classification exist afterwards and are the usual exit.
Courses that lead here
How to qualify