INTERNATIONAL oil services company Aker Solutions is to create 500 jobs in the UK over the next year as part of plans to grow its business ‘substantially’.

It plans to recruit 300 staff for its Aberdeen operation and create 200 positions at the company’s newly established west London engineering office. The move follows a 19% increase in its order backlog since January 1 this year.

The oil and gas engineering and technology services firm said that the market outlook for both the UK and Norwegian North Sea, as well as Brazil, West Africa and Asia Pacific, remains strong.

The majority of positions in Aberdeen are for the subsea technology business, where 200 posts will be created.

A further 70 jobs are planned to support work for maintaining and upgrading North Sea oil platforms in order to extend their field life.

Alan Brunnen, a managing director with Aker Solutions in Aberdeen, said: “Last year we decided to take a much more proactive recruitment approach.

“Since then our strategy has been to man up ahead of the big waves of work that we know are coming. That offers much greater predictability for our customers and ourselves.

“We anticipate that workload levels will remain high over the coming years, which is why we are staffing up our UK organisation now. We want to be well placed to capitalise on future opportunities that arise in our markets“.