YOUR FUTURE CAREER PROSPECTS/PROGRESSION
You will join the RAF as an aviator under an initial 12 year engagement. Following 4 years' service, you will be eligible to apply for an extension of service to complete a Pension Earning Engagement of 20 years' service or age 40, whichever is the later, during this time.
Entering as a direct entrant Sergeant, competitive promotion to Flight Sergeant is the next step in your career along with more supervisory controlling related roles. As an Air Traffic & Weapons Controller, you will spend most of your career carrying out your primary role as a controller, becoming a subject matter expert, heavily relied upon by your unit.
Throughout your career you may be selected for advancement to intermediate line management roles, responsible for supervising and guiding the Specialists within your team and ensuring their welfare and career management needs are met. You should expect operational deployments of up to 6 months to a range of locations worldwide, in addition to ad-hoc shorter detachments to locations such as Cyprus, Falkland Islands, Lithuania, Japan, Gibraltar, Canada, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and the USA.
TRANSFERABLE SKILLS
As an Air Traffic & Weapons Controller, you will obtain a range of transferable skills including advanced leadership (CMI Accredited), change and project management and the opportunity for further academic development. These skills and your experience could equip you for a variety of civilian jobs that involve dynamic supervisory or management responsibilities, such as working within the transportation division of the Public Sector or within an emergency response control centre. Your experience in high pressure situations would make you an ideal candidate for operations management roles as a civilian.
Professions in the RAF are distinct areas of defence expertise where common skills and attributes are required to deliver on demand. Service Personnel may be employed in any of the specialisations within their Profession depending upon the Service need, but we’ll take into account the aptitude, qualifications and career aspirations of our personnel.