**British Armed Forces Discussion Thread**

Hedge said:
I don't actually think the money is bad either for what you can sometimes be a small workload (in some roles at least). The pension alone is worth a big chunk of cash.
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What trade, er....sorry, i mean Profession are you? Some of us are getting smashed constantly, yet others are saying similar to you.

But i agree with the pension part - only reason i'm still in atm. Each year is about £2k on the lump sum and £1k on the pension.
 
Hedge said:
What kind of ballpark figures are people getting?

I understand if you're a licenced techie you could earn big money but I don't see many people leaving as corporals and earning well in excess of 50k.
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Im excess of, and will be quite a chunk over that too relatively soon. Not a licenced techie or anything, engineering work but not fully qualified in the equipment im working on. Left as a cpl.

My pension now is probably as good as, if not better in the long run as the raf too.

I'm a bit of a moron too, so it can't be that difficult for others. Or maybe I just got lucky.

My trade cpl was 38, so 5k less than proper techies. Which might've swayed my decision when it came to leaving
 
Begbie said:
Im excess of, and will be quite a chunk over that too relatively soon. Not a licenced techie or anything, engineering work but not fully qualified in the equipment im working on. Left as a cpl.

My pension now is probably as good as, if not better in the long run as the raf too.

I'm a bit of a moron too, so it can't be that difficult for others. Or maybe I just got lucky.

My trade cpl was 38, so 5k less than proper techies. Which might've swayed my decision when it came to leaving
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There's definitely money out there to be earned but I think your probably selling yourself short saying you're a moron because there are some full blown morons in the Raf who really earn way too much and would be doomed in civvy street lol.

Do you work harder now than you did in the raf?
 
Hedge said:
There's definitely money out there to be earned but I think your probably selling yourself short saying you're a moron because there are some full blown morons in the Raf who really earn way too much and would be doomed in civvy street lol.

Do you work harder now than you did in the raf?
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Oh yeah of course, I worked with a lot of them and a lot of them should appreciate they are spoiled and do what they can to stay in. But I don't think it's unreasonable to leave on 50 with prospects well north of that it you have something about you, especially technical trades.

Currently, no. But once trained I suspect that might change.
 
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As a top level CPL when I left in '14 I was on about £2200 cash in hand a month, for the next 7 years as a civvy contractor I made about £4000 a month cash in hand as an instructor in the same trade with nothing more than a 5 day £300 qualification needed on top of what I picked up in service.

There's within-trade contractor jobs right now at Odiham for £3800 cash in hand so these jobs, for that sort of pay, still exist today, it's just way more "risky" as a job vs the stability (and therefore RAF equivalent pay) of staying in.
 
ianh said:
As a top level CPL when I left in '14 I was on about £2200 cash in hand a month, for the next 7 years as a civvy contractor I made about £4000 a month cash in hand as an instructor in the same trade with nothing more than a 5 day £300 qualification needed on top of what I picked up in service.

There's within-trade contractor jobs right now at Odiham for £3800 cash in hand so these jobs, for that sort of pay, still exist today, it's just way more "risky" as a job vs the stability (and therefore RAF equivalent pay) of staying in.
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Where were you instructing for 4k a month? That must be like 70k a year.

Seems particularly high. If it's a Saudi job then fair enough but that's a lifestyle that is more restrictive than a traditional raf job in UK tbh.
 
Hedge said:
Where were you instructing for 4k a month? That must be like 70k a year.

Seems particularly high. If it's a Saudi job then fair enough but that's a lifestyle that is more restrictive than a traditional raf job in UK tbh.
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Company I'm with will pay 67 for an instructor (top of the pay bad, in fairness).

Know an ex Navy guy who was contract instructing for crazy money, weeks after he left the Navy, for the MOD.
 
Penfold101 said:
Counting down the days and awaiting the FRI finally being released as I could do with a laugh…
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Same here, got 5 years left and I was messed about big style with a posting last year. So will see what this FRI brings, I'm taking it if it comes as it's free money and a no brainer.

Got myself a very decent role now which doesn't even involve a lot of the usual RAF/Military rubbish. Cruise control? Yes please.
 
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Mad_Jay said:
Been dealing a lot with SP moving from the Army to the RAF recently, they've all not regret it. Go on, you know you want to haha
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Meh - I transfered Army to RAF about a year ago. My take is that it's not all it's cooked up to be.

I've been jammy with my next posting so I'll see that out and be back in time for my 12 year point to decide if i'll stay or not.

--

I noticed the OR1-3 pay scales are all getting an immediate and not insignificant raise to stay in line with the cost of living. Not sure how they can justify that without pushing it on to the rest of us.
 
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Hedge said:
Where were you instructing for 4k a month? That must be like 70k a year.
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"Contracting" dude, very high pay but zero job stability so massive risk i.e. walk in one day "you're done", there's no company pension, no sick pay etc.

I did 3 years at a BAE systems factory teaching all manner of random AV bits from 1st line "here's a new LRU and how to test it" to "how do I build this circuit board in a factory" levels to fixing test equipment and everywhere in-between to BAE staff, UK military and Foreign Military. The next 4 years were Saudi where it was pure 1st line only so the personal life vs money becomes an issue like you mentioned. However, the AV tech contractor job offer at Odiham for £3500 (not £3800, keypad finger slip) a month cash in hand (from 2 weeks ago) was 37 hours at £31/hr a week, this was a bit of the e-mail I got for the role -

The role will be working on an initial 6 month contract on the Chinook aircraft. Experience on this aircraft is desired but not required.

The role will be working 37 hours a week but there is an option to work up to 45 hours with overtime.

The role is paying £31 p/h Umbrella.

Let me know if this is something you would consider and we can discuss further.
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Then put that £31/h into an "Umbrella* Calc" to get take home = £3545 a month cash in hand at just 37 hrs or, at 45 hrs, £3770 a month all after tax etc. So these jobs still exist but the "big" pay comes with "big" risks, otherwise if you want the stability of an RAF style job you earn RAF style pay, which is what I do now as I get older (pension/sickpay etc) rather than staying with the risk.

*******

* = An Umbrella company sorts out all your taxes for you for a small fee as opposed to making yourself a Limited Company where you earn more but you have to do everything yourself.
 
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