Andy Dinsdale – Why being a submariner is such a good career

if you want a career, not just in Engineering. If you want a long-standing career with stability and consistency, what more could you want that in being involved in submarines? Because a) they’re going to be around for a long time, even if, the same with people at work, even if whatever Government’s in power at the time, even if the answer is “Right, we’re going to stop submarines today” and it never will be, but even if, let’s play that one out. Stop submarines today, we’re still going to have submarines, nuclear submarines for at least another 30-40-50 years.

So it might not what you want to be involved in, but even if the Government said, “We’re going to cancel submarines as of today”, well you can be involved in submarine disposal for the next 40 years, and as an Engineer, that’s something you might want to be involved in.

So, in terms of Engineering, and it’s not just Engineering, but being involved in the submarine … everyone talks about it as a Submarine Enterprise, being a part of the Submarine Enterprise, the submarine family of which the one onboard is a microcosm of everything else that exists out in Industry as well, is just … I just can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t want to do it, because it’s going to be there forever.

It’s an enormous challenge, it’s an enormous privilege, but yeah, why wouldn’t you want to do it? The only reason I think people don’t want to do it is ‘cos they don’t realise what it is.