Your Career Prospects
You will join the RAF on an initial commission of 12 years and may be selected to continue your service on a pension earning commission of 20 years’ service or to age 40, whichever is the later.
Promotion to the rank of Flight Lieutenant is on a time served / satisfactory service basis after 3½ years from completing( M) IOT. Further promotion to Squadron Leader and above is by competitive selection.
On-going Development
Subsequent tours of duty may see you being employed in a wide variety of areas, including:
• One of the other areas of the Control Officer specialisations.
• As‘ Mission Crew’ on the E-7 Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning aircraft based at RAF Lossiemouth.
• Part of the UK’ s deployable, ground based, command and control unit‘ Number 1 Air Control Centre’ located at RAF Boulmer.
• Tactical ATC – high readiness small teams who deploy ahead of the main force to set up landing zones and airfields worldwide.
• Instructing ab-initio and postgraduate students.
You may also be selected for advancement to higher management roles, responsible for leading large teams of fellow officers and aviators.
Throughout your career, you should expect operational deployments( generally of up to but not limited to 6 months duration) to a range of locations worldwide, together with ad-hoc shorter detachments to such locations as Cyprus, Lithuania, Gibraltar, Canada, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and the US. The RAF also has a variety of exchange opportunities which include instructing the US Marine Corps in Arizona; the US Air Force Space Command in Colorado and the Royal Norwegian Air Force.
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