Forth Ports

A port operator running ports on the Firth of Forth, the Tay at Dundee, and the Port of Tilbury on the Thames, with a head office in Edinburgh.

About Forth Ports

Forth Ports runs eight ports. Six are on the Firth of Forth in Scotland: Grangemouth, Leith, Rosyth, Methil, Burntisland and Kirkcaldy. Dundee is on the Firth of Tay, and the Port of Tilbury is on the Thames in Essex, where the company also operates the newer Tilbury2 site. Together they handle containers, paper and timber, bulk cargo, building materials and cruise ships. In Scotland the company manages about 500 square miles of navigable water in the Forth and Tay estuaries, and it also provides harbour towage through Targe Towing.

Forth Ports began on 15 December 1967 as the Forth Ports Authority and took on pilotage on the Firth of Forth in 1988, according to Wikipedia. It bought the Port of Dundee and the Port of Tilbury in 1995. We did not find a formal mission statement or list of values on the company pages we could read. What the pages emphasise instead is efficiency, reliability, flexibility, safety and secure operations, so we describe those as its stated priorities rather than as an official mission.

The company's head office is in Edinburgh, and its Forth and Tay Navigation Service is based in Grangemouth, offering round-the-clock radio and radar coverage with authorised pilots available on both estuaries. At Tilbury, which it calls London's principal port and the largest multi-purpose port on the Thames, it describes 47 berths in the enclosed docks, seven deep-water river berths and the London International Cruise Terminal, which can take ships up to 350 metres long. Leith is described by Wikipedia as Scotland's largest enclosed deep-water port, and Grangemouth as Scotland's largest container port. Its property arm owned about 400 acres, most of Edinburgh's waterfront, according to Wikipedia's older figure.

The company's marine pages name several of its people, including a chief harbour master and a senior harbour master at Grangemouth, a conservancy manager, and an asset manager and harbour master at Tilbury. That tells you that skilled seafaring and engineering roles sit at the heart of the business. We did not find detail on workplace culture or staff numbers, so we have not invented any, and the company's own pages do not make claims about it.

The kinds of work at Forth Ports include harbour masters and assistant harbour masters, vessel traffic service operators who watch ships on radar, pilots, hydrographic surveyors and GIS (mapping) specialists who keep charts and channels up to date, tug and marine crews, cargo-handling and terminal teams, cruise terminal staff, and property, finance and commercial teams. If you like maps, boats, big infrastructure or the idea of running a port day and night, there are plenty of different routes into this kind of company.

What they do

• {'desc': 'Eight ports on the Forth, Tay and Thames handling containers, paper, timber, bulk and cruise.', 'title': 'Port operations'}
• {'desc': 'Pilotage, vessel traffic control, towage, surveying and navigation aids.', 'title': 'Marine services'}
• {'desc': 'Land around the Edinburgh waterfront and other port sites.', 'title': 'Property'}

Key facts

• Founded 15 December 1967 as the Forth Ports Authority (Wikipedia)
• Acquired the Port of Dundee and Port of Tilbury in 1995 (Wikipedia)
• Manages about 500 square miles of navigable water in the Forth and Tay (company website)
• Tilbury has 47 enclosed-dock berths and a cruise terminal for ships up to 350 m (company website)

Website: www.forthports.co.uk