ABB adds engineering posts in Aberdeen and East Kilbride

 

Author - Greig Cameron - Deputy Business Editor © The Herald Originally published: 2/7/2012

In Aberdeen, it will add about 100 sales and engineering posts by the end of the year, which is a 50% increase on the current workforce in the north-east.

Its East Kilbride project management office is also slated to treble in size, from 10 people to 30.

The company has been involved in the large-scale electricity grid connection projects for the Western Isle and Shetlands in recent years but is heavily focused on supplying the energy and marine sectors in Scotland.

Gary Steel, head of human resources and executive board member, said: "In the past two or three years we have rebuilt a lot of our oil and gas capability in Aberdeen.

"At the moment, we have about 100 positions we are looking to fill in Scotland.

"By the end of the year we will have around 300 in Aberdeen, mainly focused on oil and gas engineering and project sales but also looking at the marine sector, turbo charging and other areas of automation."

He added: "We have also based part of our consultancy arm in Aberdeen as we are finding we can proactively go in and help our customers develop new opportunities.

"We are rebuilding East Kilbride as a project office to support the infrastructure works we are doing. At the moment, the projection is we will be up to 30 people there by the end of the year."

ABB also has an investment in the Scottish wave energy firm Aquamarine Power, and Mr Steel – who was brought up in Irvine but is now based in Zurich – sits on the board of the Edinburgh firm.

He said: "We would have high hopes for that becoming commercial in the next two or three years. I am following that very closely, and there is growth potential there.

"As it gets closer to commercialisation, the current workforce will need to be augmented with more commercially-oriented people."

Mr Steel, who recently won a lifetime award from the University of Michigan and US consulting company Linkage for his role in integrating human resources in ABB's strategy, also suggested there was further growth potential in Scotland.

He said: "As the North Sea reinvents itself, we would expect demand to grow. We will go where the markets are. We operate in more than 100 countries around the world and employ 145,000 people."

ABB is also hoping to rebuild a formal connection it had previously enjoyed with Strathclyde University. Mr Steel, who serves as chairman on the boards of ABB in both India and Sweden, added: "We had a good relationship on technology development and so on a few years ago but we have allowed that lapse.

"But we are getting back into it and trying to rebuild it as a collaboration around innovation and technology.

"We see that as a very good alliance and a good way of getting more students aware of what we are and what we do."

ABB, which has its headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, was formed in 1988 following a merger of Asea and Brown Boveri.

It had an annual revenue of $40 billion in 2011.

In the UK, customers include National Grid, Nexen and Network Rail.