More jobs, a major contract and £280m on the books at SEA Barnstaple

Barnstaple manufacturer SEA is looking forward to a bright future after winning a major £135milion contract, with orders secure for the next five years and bringing extra jobs to the town.

Earlier this year the defence and transport technology company won a Ministry of Defence contract to supply the innovative Ancilia system to protect Royal Navy ships from missiles.

It is an exciting new chapter for SEA (Systems Engineering and Assessment), which now has £280m of combined orders on its books – enough to provide work for five years – and is also seeking to recruit 40 more staff for its Barnstaple site.

Above: How the SEA Ancilia Trainable Decoy Launcher will look once installed on a ship. Credit: SEA

The company’s existing decoy launchers to thwart missiles by firing pyrotechnics or other measures are already in use on British ships and have recently seen action in the Red Sea, fending off missile attacks launched by Houthi rebels.

The icing on the cake was winning the Business Action Awards International Trade & Exports Award recently for its success in exporting its defence capabilities to armed forces across the globe.

The North Devon Gazette was invited to visit the SEA factory at Pottington to find out more about its work and what the Royal Navy contract will mean for the town.

The company has been in Barnstaple, for more than 60 years and was formerly known as J & S Marine. It was acquired by Cohort plc in 2007.

SEA is already a trusted supplier for torpedo launchers and countermeasures systems for the Royal Navy, as well as exporting around 30 per cent of its products to other nations around the world.

The company also produces sensors for anti-submarine measures or environmental monitoring, such as its new KraitSense system and communications systems, as well as maintaining and refurbishing existing systems in use by the Royal Navy and further afield.

Its new Ancilia system is the next generation in ship defence and has been developed in partnership with Sussex-based Chess Dynamics.

The turret-shaped system can easily be mounted on ships and can move in all directions, compared with traditional launchers which are fixed and require the crew to move the vessel to defend against attacks.

Above: Paul Parsons, international business development director, marketing manager Alice Moore and managing director Richard Flitton. Credit: SEA

SEA managing director Richard Flitton said it had been ‘a fantastic year’, with SEA’s state-of-the-art technology selected by armed forces across the globe.

He said: “From the launch of our innovative trainable decoy launcher, Ancilia, to the export of our Torpedo Launcher System across four continents, we’re proud to be representing North Devon on an international playing field demonstrating the expertise and innovation that takes place at our site in Barnstaple.

“The business as a whole has probably increased its number of staff by about a third and in Barnstaple specifically it has gone up by about 40 per cent to 240 staff.

“There are a lot more high-skilled jobs available ranging from shop floor to engineering. The size of the work we have on the books has gone up massively by a factor of six, from about £40m three or four years ago to about £280m today.”

SEA is currently seeking to recruit some 46 new staff across its sites in Bristol and Beckington in Somerset, with upwards of 40 of those linked to Barnstaple.

Mr Flitton added: “We are investing in training to try and grow North Devon skills in the local population, so as well as recruiting from outside we are trying to create new jobs and new careers in the local community.”

The company’s emerging talent manager has overhauled its graduate and apprenticeship programme, which includes a partnership with Petroc plus Group Training and Development, offering graduates and apprentices experience and roles across the whole business.

Find out more about the jobs available at https://careers.sea.co.uk/vacancies