South Korea and Japan have a huge maritime industry, but their underwater work is organised in a very local way: their own language, their own regulation and mostly domestic hiring. For a foreign diver, entry is rarely direct, and it almost always comes through an international contractor or a global client's project.
South Korea and Japan rarely come up in conversations about commercial diving, and it's not because there's no underwater work. It's because the work that exists is organised in a way that's almost invisible from outside: in the country's language, with the country's companies and under the country's rules. A European or Latin American diver can spend months looking for openings and find practically nothing, not because the market is empty, but because it doesn't advertise outward.
It's worth understanding how these two markets work, if only to calibrate expectations. They're two of the world's most important maritime powers, with shipyards, ports, a fleet and a structural dependence on the sea, and yet they're among the hardest destinations for a foreign diver looking to settle in.
What kind of underwater work sustains these markets
The first key is what the work is made up of. This isn't an energy market like the North Sea, nor an offshore services market like the Persian Gulf. It's a maritime and industrial market, and that changes the profile of the work.
Shipbuilding and ship repair
Both countries have a first-rate shipbuilding and ship-repair industry, and that generates a steady flow of underwater work: hull inspection, hull cleaning, work on propellers and rudders, anode changes, sealing sea chests, one-off repairs afloat to avoid a dry-docking.
It's unglamorous, very repetitive work, but it's what provides continuity. In a busy industrial port there are ships arriving, ships leaving and ships that need a quick job done without missing their operating window, and that rhythm keeps dive teams busy year-round.
Port works and coastal infrastructure
Quays, jetties, dry docks, fenders, outfalls, cooling-water intakes for industrial facilities. All of that is built, inspected and repaired by divers. In countries with a heavily urbanised, industrialised coastline, this segment has considerable volume and steady demand, tied more to maintenance than to new construction.
Aquaculture
Marine aquaculture carries a lot of weight in the region and generates its own underwater work: checking nets, moorings, cleaning, repairing installations and recovering equipment. It's a niche with a very different logic from offshore energy, closer to the fishing world, with smaller, more local company structures.
Subsea cables and marine energy
Submarine telecoms cables and electrical interconnectors need work on the coastal sections: shore landings, cable protection, burial in the surf zone and repair when something damages them. On top of that there are marine energy projects, including offshore wind, which have been gaining ground in both countries' plans and which bring the same kind of tasks as in any other market: foundations, moorings, scour protection and work on substations.
The important detail is that the volume of these segments depends on the investment cycle and on political decisions that change, so it's worth checking the situation at the actual moment you're considering it, rather than trusting a snapshot from a few years back.
Why these are hard markets to get into
Here's the crux of the matter, and it's worth explaining plainly, because it saves anyone considering this time and money.
The language isn't a minor detail
In commercial diving, communication is part of the safety system. The supervisor talks to the diver, the diver confirms, the surface team coordinates with the ship's captain or the person in charge of the quay, and all of it gets documented. When the team's working language is Korean or Japanese, a diver who doesn't speak it isn't just awkward to integrate: they're an operational risk the supervisor has to manage.
That explains a large part of why so few foreigners get hired in the domestic market. It's not an abstract cultural barrier, it's a very concrete functional one.
Their own national regulation
Both countries have their own occupational safety framework applied to underwater work, with their own training requirements, medical clearance and operational organisation. That framework doesn't necessarily match the better-known schemes of the international circuit, and its detail changes over time.
That's why, in a piece like this, the responsible thing is not to list specific requirements: any list given here could be out of date or simply not apply to the kind of work the reader is interested in. What can be said is the shape of the problem: there's a national layer on top of the international one, and it has to be checked with the relevant national body before making any decision.
Local hiring by design
The underwater industry in these countries is organised around domestic companies working for domestic clients: shipping lines, shipyards, port authorities, government bodies, infrastructure operators. In that circuit, hiring foreign staff adds nothing for the contractor and does add administrative friction. There's no hostility; there's simply no incentive.
How certification recognition is structured
It's worth separating two scenarios, because they behave differently.
In the first, the work is part of a project with an international contractor or client. There, the practice of the global offshore circuit rules: they ask for certifications recognised internationally, current survival training and medical fitness in order, exactly as on any other project of that kind anywhere in the world. That's the scenario where a diver trained abroad makes sense to the company.
In the second, the work is purely domestic: a quay, a locally flagged vessel, an aquaculture site. There, what counts is national accreditation and the relationship with the client. A foreign qualification may be technically respected and still not work administratively, or it may require a recognition process whose scope you need to check case by case.
The practical conclusion is that an international record opens doors within the first scenario and very few within the second. Anyone wanting to operate in the second has a process of residency, language and local accreditation ahead of them that goes well beyond a certification.
Realistic ways in
The international contractor
This is the main route. Underwater services companies with a global presence run projects in the region and mobilise their own teams, mixing local and international staff depending on the scope of the contract. If a foreign diver ends up working in Korean or Japanese waters, this is most likely how: hired by a company that isn't from the country, for a project with a fixed timeframe.
There's nothing exotic about how you get onto that list. It's the same as for any destination: a well-documented profile, genuine availability and a relationship with the companies and agencies that move people around the international circuit.
The global client's project
When the end client is an energy company, a cable operator or an international shipowner, their standards travel with them. That client imposes its own safety management system and its own competence requirements, which often opens the door to staff trained under international schemes even when the work is carried out in national waters.
The vessel route
There's a third, less obvious route: arriving by ship. A diver who's part of the crew of a working vessel operating in the region comes and goes with the vessel, and their employment doesn't depend on the local market. It's a common route on cable and installation projects, and it avoids much of the administrative friction that comes with shore-based employment.
What to expect if you do end up working there
The industrial culture of both countries is demanding on method, punctuality and documentation. For a diver with solid habits, that's more of an advantage than a problem: you work with clear procedures and little improvisation. It also means little tolerance for informality or for anyone who doesn't fit the team's routine.
The specific conditions — hours, rotation, pay, type of contract — depend entirely on the contractor, the project and the country, and vary too much to give figures that would be wrong for most cases. Any figures you go by should come from the contract in front of you, not from an article.
How this fits into a career
For most divers, South Korea and Japan aren't an entry-level destination. They're somewhere you can end up working on a specific project after building a solid profile elsewhere. The usual route into Asia goes through markets more open to international staff, like the one described in the overview of Singapore and Southeast Asia, or through circuits with more predictable qualification recognition, like the one explained in the guide on Australia.
From there, getting onto a one-off project in Korea or Japan stops being a fantasy and becomes a reasonable possibility, because you're already inside the circuit of companies that do operate there. The full map of regions and how they fit together is in the guide on where the work is, and how to move between job offers in the section on empleo.
In closing
South Korea and Japan are large, technical and very closed markets. Large because the maritime industry behind them generates continuous underwater work; technical because the standard of method demanded is high; closed because the language, national regulation and hiring structure push towards local staff by default.
For a foreign diver, the useful reading isn't to write them off or to idealise them, but to place them correctly: destinations you reach through a project and through an international contractor, not destinations you show up to and job-hunt in. And as with anything that depends on national regulation, any specific requirement has to be checked with the country's official source at the time it matters, not in an article written beforehand.
Frequently asked questions
Can a foreigner work as a commercial diver in South Korea or Japan?
It's possible, but it isn't the usual route. Most of the work is done by local companies with local staff, and a foreigner's access usually comes through an international contractor that has won a contract in the area, or a project whose client is a global company. It's always worth checking visa and work-permit requirements with the country's official source.
Is a European or American certification valid in these countries?
It depends on the client and the type of work. On projects with international contractors and clients, certifications recognised on the global offshore circuit are usually required. On purely domestic work, local accreditation may be required, and that varies by country and by time, so it needs to be checked with the relevant authority.
What kind of underwater work is there in these markets?
Mostly work tied to a highly developed maritime industry: ship repair and maintenance, port construction, coastal infrastructure inspection, aquaculture, subsea cables and marine energy projects. How much weight each segment carries varies by region and by where the investment cycle stands.
Is there saturation diving in South Korea and Japan?
There is saturation activity tied to energy and subsea infrastructure projects, but it isn't the backbone of the market the way it is in other regions. Most of the day-to-day work volume is surface-supplied diving in ports, shipyards and along the coast.
Do you need to speak the language?
To work steadily in the local market, essentially yes, because operational communication and documentation are handled in the country's language. In international contractors' teams the working language is usually English, though there's always an interface with the client and the port authority that's handled locally.
Published 4 September 2026 · By Arthur More, professional saturation diver
Photo: Free Public Domain Illustrations by rawpixel · CC BY via Openverse
This article is part of our in-depth guide to commercial diving certification: HSE, IMCA, ADCI, ADAS and DCBC — the complete picture, with sources.
This article is part of our in-depth guide to commercial diving certification: HSE, IMCA, ADCI, ADAS and DCBC — the complete picture, with sources.
This article is part of our in-depth guide to commercial diving certification: HSE, IMCA, ADCI, ADAS and DCBC — the complete picture, with sources.
This article is part of our in-depth guide to commercial diving certification: HSE, IMCA, ADCI, ADAS and DCBC — the complete picture, with sources.