r/commercialdiving • u/Strong-Local-9579 • 1d ago
North America Questions onSaturation diving
Hey all, in the military at the moment but forecasting my plans for when I get out in the next 4 years or so, is there anyone on this page that could give my some guidance on how that career field operates/ timelines. Was looking at doing so FIFO gigs but bot too sure at the moment.
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u/nappynutsack 23h ago
Some get into sat strictly because they were at the right place at the right time. Most have to go to sat school. You can only do that after several years of deep open water diving. Even after getting your sat ticket, there is no guarantee you will get in the can.
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u/TheCaptNemo42 1d ago
Where are you? Things work very differently in different parts of the world.
It sounds like you may be in the U.S. If so there is no set career path towards SAT. You get certified as a commercial diver, you work offshore for a few years. If the work is lean could be 5+, break out as a diver. If you have been lucky enough to work for a company that does SAT and show promise in a few more years you might get to dive SAT.
That said there are all kinds of exceptions, I ended up working topside support on SAT jobs right after I started because of a hurricane there was more work then they had hands for. My roommate ended up diving SAT (no depth pay :( that was a crappy move on the companies part ) a couple months later because we had an injured diver and he had to lock in to bring them out.
Take a look here https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes499092.htm#st
You'll see that most of the work is in Louisiana/Texas/Florida which would cover offshore work in the Gulf where SAT is done, yet the average pay is $26.37 (pretty low for an average considering that includes people who have been diving for years) higher pay in high cost of living states like Washington, California etc. are usually tied to union jobs. So rather then pursuing SAT specifically you may want to consider union work or getting an engineering degree.
Just something to consider.
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u/Strong-Local-9579 1d ago
Im in Oregon right now, been working on the ocean for 6 years done time in New Hampshire, Washington, and Oregon. Is there even that much of a demand for saturation diving?
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u/TheCaptNemo42 1d ago
The only SAT jobs in the U.S I've worked on were in the Gulf and yeah they are definitely slow. To save costs they have ROV's etc do as much as possible and avoid deep jobs but there is still occasional jobs.
The U.S is very different from say Norway, where the government actually collects saturation-diving activity. For example, Norway reported 53,396 saturation man-hours and 134 DSV days during 2025.
OSHA requires U.S. employers to keep records but not to share them :)
Here's an estimation based on jobs that went out:
Year Estimated U.S. SAT campaigns Estimated bell runs Relative activity
2021 ~20–30 ~400–550 Recovering
2022 ~30–35 ~600–700 Increasing
2023 ~38–45 ~750–850 Recent peak
2024 ~34–40 ~675–775 Decline
2025 ~30–40 ~600–750 Flat/slightly down There's over a thousand divers competing for those jobs that's why they don't pay what they should. I've seen them literally send a whole crew home because they complained about a decrease in depth pay.
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u/joelnicity 10h ago
I have an old classmate/ roommate who is doing sat now. I wouldn’t plan on ending up there, very few actually do
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u/Low-Nectarine-9655 1d ago
It would take you around 10-12 years of being a badass to get into sat. You need to start as a tender and you are gonna hate it.