Somehow, despite being a bunch of semi-autistic computer-oriented males, the subject of working in air traffic control has never come up. If I’m wrong please let me know so I can take this down*.

Back on the Career Crossroads thread (now cannot find), someone mentioned that NATS were on a recruitment drive for air traffic controllers. Being very much a nerd at a career crossroads at the time, I decided to give it a go. The ‘infographic’ on the NATS site suggests there’s fairly slim odds of qualifying as a trainee unless you are Rain Man himself.

Fast forward six months and I’ve now qualified as a trainee. I’m supposed to be embarking on a 21 week training course in either Spain or Gloucester on what amounts to less than minimum wage, with a bunch of 20 year olds (I’m 37 with a wife and three young kids).

Whilst this is all well and good I’m struggling to get any straight info out of NATS, specifically: Do any other older, heavily-indebted candidates manage to continue to do consulting work on the side whilst training, in order to afford the drop in salary? I did ask this on the final assessment day and got some very disapproving looks from the assessors. They implied the training required 100% commitment, but I’m wondering how true this is in ‘real life’.

The ‘Benefits’ page on the NATS website is also a masterclass in ambiguity. You owe £350k to a bank but you want to know how much you’ll earn and when? How crude of you to ask!

In short, if you’ve been through the training & validation at NATS recently I’d love to hear from you. Someone on here must have!

*Probably shouldn’t write “take this down” and “air traffic” in the same thread. Still, maybe someone from Interpol can help answer the above.

My bro has worked at NATS since the late 90s and I know a few of the guys down at Swanwick. It’s been a long time since he trained but from memory I think it was intense. It’s a well-paid, low hours job once you’re up and running but I think the training and assessments are tough. I’ll pass your post on to him and see what his advice is.

Cheers Curto80!

I should add that questions like this tend to go unanswered on the pprune forum (like STW but for all things flight related). Seems the conversation is stifled there. I find this place way better for straight answers.

Appreciate any info/contacts you can send on

Friday night bump of shame

A friend recently trained as an air traffic controller as a civil servant, ended up spending a lot of time at RAF Shawbury and then goes and does an internship of sorts at a station for some time to get experience.

Might be worth looking at the civil service jobs site to see if anything is there. Does mean he gets a salary while training and doing the job all be it a civil service graded one.

I really hope there are no air traffic controllers on here.

I know of one who probably is 🙂

Lol @ jimjam….not everyond STWs purely in work time….

+1 for interest in the answer, though.

I knew someone who went through this. It’s a highly stressful role, you make a mistake and several hundred people die and the training is representative of this. You won’t have time to do anything on the side, including sleep.

Good luck!

P.S. It’s popular to move to Canada after a bit of experience for a significant increase in salary.

I really hope there are no air traffic controllers on here.

There’s definitely at least one but I can’t remember his forum name!

I went through the tests a few years ago, a couple of months after I’d been made redundant. It was more as something to do than any realistic expectation of getting the job plus it counted towards my Job Centre credits.

Tough stuff, loads of mental arithmetic, spatial awareness, anti-dyslexia tests.
Anyway, I didn’t pass the overall thing so that was the end of that but it was an interesting day out.

A friend recently made it all the way through training in Canada. If the UK is anything like Canada you’re not going to manage much else whilst training. It’s very intense.

Cheers for the responses. Intrigued to know who the mystery STW air traffic controller is! I honestly thought there’d be half a dozen on here.

As the first year is a paltry £13k and as more and more people confirm that the training & exams are ‘harder than a masters’, it’s looking less and less feasible/affordable. Too much of a gamble quitting my other job and breaking ties.

Any further feedback welcomed though. Got about a week to decide