Seafarer Employment Survey 2025 - 26 Extension

One of the DfT's responsibilities is to support the maritime sector by producing the overall strategy and planning policy for ports in England and Wales. The annual Seafarers Statistics are a National Statistics series produced by the DfT. These are used internally by our policy teams in decision making, promoting the UK maritime sector and also by a wide range of external customers including maritime trade unions, industry bodies such as the UK CoS, academics, researchers and members of the general public with a specialist interest.

The DfT require a survey of UK companies employing seafarers. This must provide data which is fit for the purpose of producing seafarers statistics, including covering a sufficient number of companies, ability to collect data consistently to support monitoring of trends and be comparable with the current statistics (based on UK Chamber of Shipping members).

The Maritime Skills Commission's UK Rating Review recommended that DfT widen the scope of the UK Seafarers Statistics to cover smaller vessels including workboats, which is now included within this Contract Extension.