Subsea cables carry more than 99% of intercontinental digital communications, according to organisers, underpinning everything from financial transactions to international trade. The event focused on the offshore and onshore workforce behind that infrastructure, spanning mariners, engineers, technicians, environmental specialists, manufacturers and project managers.
The Subsea Cables Summer Reception was hosted by BT in partnership with the European Subsea Cables Association (ESCA), the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) and the SubOptic Foundation. Baroness Lloyd and Gus Jaspert, managing director, Marine at The Crown Estate, opened proceedings, and the minister met cable engineers and offshore specialists as well as members of ESCA’s NextGen Subgroup, a network of roughly 120 students and early-career professionals.
Speakers used the event to stress that there is no single entry route into the sector, pointing to apprenticeships and vocational training alongside graduate schemes as key to widening the talent pipeline.
Baroness Lloyd described subsea cables as the hidden backbone of the economy and everyday life, and said building a resilient future for the infrastructure requires investment in the people who install, maintain and protect it, not just the technology itself.
Jaspert said the UK’s resilience depends as much on the people who operate and restore subsea systems, often in difficult conditions, as on the infrastructure itself. John Wrottesley, ESCA’s executive director, added that the industry needs to invest in its workforce and present subsea careers as exciting and globally significant if it wants resilient digital infrastructure in future.
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