A rubber shock cell is used to absorb vibrations and impact loads during the installation of an oil platform on pre-installed jacketed legs. The components are designed according to specification requirements, including platform weight, loaded area of jacketed legs and rubber stiffness behaviour. The latest demand in the oil and gas industry requires the installation of more complex and heavy oil platforms on existing legs without increasing the loaded area. To address this constraint, a high-load capacity rubber shock cell is needed during the installation. The purpose of this research is to design a high compressive stress rubber shock cell that can withstand a high vertical load in a limited space. The compression behaviour of a scaled-down rubber shock cell has been investigated using finite elements and experimental methods. Meanwhile, stress distribution on a hollow constraining cylinder was investigated by finite element analysis and analytical solution methods. The results show that the force–deflection behaviour of rubber shock cell under compression is affected by the number of reinforcement plates embedded in the rubber, the type of rubber used and the annular space between the rubber and the constraining cylinder. The improvised design rubber shock cell has solved the initial trial design issue of having a sharp bilinear deformation with very low initial stiffness. The results also show that a finite element model can effectively describe the force–deflection behaviour of compressed rubber shock cell that has been validated against experimental test results.