Solutions
Specialist people, cleared and on site.
Contract, permanent and project-based talent across every discipline — sourced, technically screened and compliance-checked before anyone reaches your gate.
Workforce Solutions
Workforce Solutions is the straightforward version of what we do: you need people, we find them, vet them, check they can lawfully and safely do the work, and get them to site or to interview. It covers day-rate contract and staffing, permanent and retained search, and the pipelining work that happens long before a requisition is raised.
The difference in this market is rarely the CV database. It is whether the person understands a permit-to-work system, holds a live ticket rather than a lapsed one, and can be cleared and inducted inside your window. That is where our screening effort goes.
Who it’s for
Is this the right fit?
Workforce Solutions suits organisations that own the delivery and need the right people inside it — not a scope handed over the fence.
Operators and asset owners
Staffing turnarounds, outages and shutdowns where the window is fixed and the trade mix changes weekly.
Tier 1 and Tier 2 contractors
Ramping up after a contract award, or covering scarce disciplines on a package you have already priced.
OEMs and specialist subcontractors
Finding narrow skill sets — HV commissioning, CompEx-certified E&I, rotating equipment, ITER-adjacent controls — where the national pool is small.
In-house talent teams
Overflow capacity, hard-to-fill requisitions, and disciplines your PSL does not genuinely cover.
When it’s not the right fit
If you need a whole scope owned and reported on rather than people to direct, Managed Project Services is the better fit — and we will say so at the first conversation.
What’s included
What you actually get.
Contract and day-rate staffing
Single hires through to full crews: mechanical fitters, E&I technicians, welders and pipefitters, commissioning and completions engineers, HV/LV authorised persons, planners, QA/QC and document control.
Permanent and retained search
Contingent recruitment for volume and defined roles; retained, mapped search for leadership, safety-critical and scarce technical appointments where a market sweep is the only credible approach.
Technical screening by people who know the discipline
Structured competency questions written around the actual scope — not a keyword match. Where we lack the depth in-house we say so and bring a technical assessor into the call.
Compliance, tickets and vetting
Right to work, BOSIET/FOET and MIST for offshore, CCNSG and ECITB records, CompEx, IPAF/PASMA, LOLER and inspection competencies, occupational health and medicals, plus support for SC and DV clearance sponsorship where a site demands it.
IR35 and engagement-model support
Role-based status assessment input, Status Determination Statement record-keeping, and engagement via PAYE, umbrella or limited company as the determination and your policy require.
Payroll and contractor administration
Timesheet capture, rate and overtime rules applied as agreed, weekly contractor pay runs, holiday and AWR tracking, and a consolidated invoice rather than a stack of them.
Talent pooling ahead of demand
Availability mapping and warm pipelines built before sanction or contract award, so week one of mobilisation is not week one of sourcing.
Rate benchmarking and offer management
What the discipline is genuinely paying in that region right now, so offers land first time and rates do not drift mid-campaign.
How it works
From first call to close-out.
- 1
Brief and role definition
A short working call to pin down scope, shift pattern, site access requirements, mandatory tickets, clearance level and the realistic rate. We flag anything in the brief that will make the role unfillable as written.
- 2
Search and technical screening
Targeted search across our network, referrals and the open market. Every candidate is spoken to, screened against the competency questions agreed in the brief, and assessed for genuine availability rather than theoretical interest.
- 3
Compliance and vetting checks
Right to work, ticket validity with expiry dates recorded, references, medical status and clearance position — evidenced and held before the shortlist, not chased after you have chosen someone.
- 4
Shortlist and selection
A curated shortlist with the reasoning attached: why each person fits, where the gaps are, notice period and rate expectation. We coordinate interviews and handle the offer conversation.
- 5
Mobilisation and aftercare
Inductions, site access, onboarding paperwork and start confirmation. We check in during week one and at regular intervals after, and we track ticket expiries so a certificate does not lapse mid-assignment.
How we charge
The commercial model, plainly.
Two commercial models, both quoted in writing before we start work. We do not publish rate cards because they would be fiction across eleven sectors — but we will always show you the build-up for your roles.
Contract and day-rate
An agreed margin on top of the contractor's pay rate. You see both numbers. Overtime is charged at the same agreed margin rather than a multiplied one, and the margin does not move during the assignment without a conversation.
Permanent and executive search
A percentage of first-year base salary, contingent for defined roles or retained in stages for search. Rebate and replacement terms are written into the terms of business, not offered verbally.
Volume and framework arrangements
Where the volume genuinely justifies it, a reduced margin against agreed commitment, or a fixed-fee arrangement for a defined campaign. We will tell you when your volume does not justify it.
Worth saying out loud
Under the off-payroll rules, the status determination for medium and large clients is yours to make — we support the assessment, hold the records and act as fee-payer where appropriate, but we cannot and will not sign off a determination on your behalf. Anyone offering to make the IR35 problem disappear is selling you a risk you keep.
Typical engagements
What this looks like in practice.
- A six-week turnaround crew of mechanical, E&I and scaffold trades on a rolling shift pattern
- A single scarce hire — an HV commissioning engineer with senior authorised person status
- Building out a permanent project controls function across planning, cost and risk
- Ongoing contract supply against a framework through an AMP cycle
- Pipelining welders and pipefitters ahead of a sanction decision
Illustrative engagement
Illustrative — not a named clientA North Sea operator
The scenario below is illustrative — a composite of typical work written to show how an engagement runs. It is not a description of an identified customer or a claimed result.
An operator has a summer maintenance window on a producing asset. The trade mix is agreed eight weeks out and changes twice before mobilisation. Every person needs valid BOSIET or FOET, MIST, an offshore medical and a completed vetting pack before a flight can be booked, and helicopter seats are the binding constraint.
The work is unglamorous: build the crew against the current revision of the scope, hold the compliance evidence centrally so the offshore coordinator can see who is cleared to fly, keep a reserve pool warm for the inevitable dropouts, and track ticket expiries against a campaign that runs past several of them. The value is not clever sourcing. It is that nobody arrives at the heliport unable to board.
Questions
The things clients ask first.
- How quickly can you get someone to site?
- Sourcing a shortlist for a defined contract role is usually days rather than weeks. Getting that person through the gate is governed by your induction and clearance requirements, not by us — an offshore medical plus BOSIET for someone whose ticket has lapsed is a real lead time, and security clearance can run to months. We will give you an honest date at brief stage rather than an optimistic one.
- Who decides IR35 status?
- You do, if you are a medium or large client under the off-payroll rules. We input into the role-based assessment, keep the Status Determination Statement on record and engage the contractor via PAYE, umbrella or their own limited company accordingly. Where we are the fee-payer we operate the deductions. What we will not do is tell you a role is outside IR35 to make a placement easier.
- What compliance checks are done before mobilisation?
- Right to work, identity, references, and every ticket and certificate the site requires — logged with expiry dates so we can flag renewals before they bite. Occupational health and medicals where the role demands them, and clearance sponsorship support for SC or DV sites. Evidence is held and available to you rather than asserted.
- What happens if a contractor does not work out?
- For contract, you give notice under the assignment terms and we replace — we would rather absorb the replacement effort than argue. For permanent, the rebate or free-replacement period is set out in the terms of business before you engage us. Both are written down; neither depends on goodwill.
- Do you supply outside the UK?
- Our core market is the UK and UK Continental Shelf. We support international mobilisation for existing clients where we can do so lawfully — visas, work permits, host-country payroll and A1 or equivalent social security positions all need to be genuinely solvable, and we will decline where they are not.
- Can you work alongside our existing PSL or MSP?
- Yes, and often that is the sensible route in — as a specialist supplier for disciplines a generalist list does not reach. We will work to your MSP's terms and technology rather than asking you to run a parallel process.
Where it applies
Workforce Solutions by sector.
The model is the same across all eleven sectors we work in. What changes is the discipline mix and the certification that gates site access — each sector page sets out both, and how this pillar applies there.
- Oil & GasUpstream, midstream and downstream projects and turnarounds.
- NuclearNew build, operations and decommissioning programmes.
- RenewablesOffshore & onshore wind, solar and storage.
- UtilitiesTransmission, distribution and network upgrades.
- InfrastructureMajor civils, transport and public works.
- PowerGeneration, grid and interconnector projects.
- WaterTreatment, networks and AMP-cycle delivery.
- Data CentresHyperscale and colocation build & fit-out.
- ManufacturingProcess, plant and heavy industry.
- ChemicalPetrochemical and process safety-critical work.
- PharmaGMP facilities and capital projects.
Also from NE Project Solutions
The other two ways we deliver.
Managed Project Services
Whole packages of work delivered by a NE Project Solutions-managed team, against a statement of work, with supervision, reporting and a single point of accountability.
Explore Managed Project ServicesConsultancy Services
Advisory work on resourcing strategy, workforce planning, mobilisation and labour market reality — delivered as documents you can act on.
Explore Consultancy ServicesReady when you are
Need people on a live scope?
Send us the role, the site requirements and the date you need them working. We will come back with an honest view on availability and rate before we start searching.