I was thinking just the same thing. I could be (probably am) being a bit thick, but I thought our annual pension contribution was calculated on the basis of salary x (years served / 47). So to get to 51% contributions surely you’d have to be serving beyond 23ish years?
No it’s 51-ish% of your
annual salary, not total. Further, until recently it was final salary and now is career-averaging. But it is still one of the best pensions out there - way better than recent company ones that you can get, which are linked to the vagaries of the stock market. My Mrs’s pension has lost the best part of 60% of its value in recent years. One of the reasons why the housing market is a balooning bubble is that many are now investing in bricks and mortar. No need with a Government pension scheme (unless UK PLC goes down the toilet!
)
If there were a pay rise commsurate with my anticipated pension at pension point, an opportunity to cash in lump sum gratuity whilst serving, and not having my pension frozen on FTRS, I may have considered staying.
Yes and I would like Lambo for an MT vehicle...come on, that will never happen. I think the only realistic option is some form of retention payment, not a short-term FRI, for all at 18/40 or 20/40. Either bringing forward the EDP or £20-£30k as a token jesture so that at least you get something for staying.
Bottom line, to serve past 38, you'd be bonkers. In my case, MoD are getting to keep someone who otherwise they would be paying 12k pension per annum as well as me running the risk of getting hit with income tax if they change the rules on lump sum gratuity. The 5 years salary you lose by an inability to serve to 65 and no option for regulars to take a 60/70/80% contract as you get on in the tooth is another rather major issue for me and considering you will be at the top of your tree, costs you pot a lot of cash at this point. Easily doable, you can still do a 6 monther on a 60% with pre deployment stuff, just not much else!
The new Flexible Employment Strategy allows for part-time working. Early days, but it is a possibility.
Your £12k model isn’t quite there in my humble opinion. Firstly, for every year you stay your pension is growing by roughly £1k as by then your career average is starting to flatten. Further, if you go PAS then your earning potential
plus all of your salary is pensionable. Last time I looked Level 35 was about £82k, which is all pensionable and equivalent to senior Wg Cdr or Jnr Gp Capt. Also, until recently for Flt Lts there was a £20k transfer bonus (a 2 year measure).
You can serve to at least 70 in FTRS-land if you wish - indeed there is one aircrew mate that fits that right now.
Some of the figures quoted on here are either:
1. Someone who has left with significant RAF wide-body hours with various training ticks getting a senior First Officer on long haul. That is not the norm amongst RAF Pilot leavers.
2. Someone that has taken 15yrs + to get to Training Captain, but hey that’s enough time for us all to get to CAS or CDS to earn the big wonga.
I personally think the money whether staying in or leaving is there or there abouts. It’s the whole deal that causes issue and the biggest problem is that we pay people to leave at 18/40 or 20/40 and nothing more if you stay. That short-termism decision is taken by most, but is that the strategy all along? How many aircrew do we need past 40 years old? Do we need lots of Sqn Ldr Manwarings, Flt Lt Wilsons and MACR Jones in a pseudo Dads Army RAF? The average length of service for Aircrew is about 20 years and so that is probably about right. The big problem is that we have failed to invest in our flying training system and so don’t have the capacity or capability to train the numbers we need - that is the real reason why we are short and not the fact that 100 or so leave every year.
