The college is roughly 9 months on basic salary (plus extras). Which is ok ish.
then in unit posting that increases by close to 50% to mid £20k when posted to a unit. Depending on the unit. The busiest units are the best paid then there’s a scale widely available to all employees for the pay at each unit.
after training and validation. Again roughly 9 months depending on training hours, yourself, traffic, passing validation board and so on, this wage increases to close to £40k (unit depending, again the busiest being the best paid) until your 3 year anniversary from joining NATS.
then you move onto the “scale”, the bottom of the ladder being around the £60k mark. With annual increases up the ladder every year. There are ways to expedite the move up the ladder, such as becoming OJTi, OCA, management etc but after 10-15 years you’ll find yourself at the very top. Overtimes, shift allowance, meal allowances at some units all add up as well and boost the salary further.
all in all for someone like me getting a job as and ATCO was a golden ticket. Realistically in my old job the best I was ever going to earn was mid £30k for a hell of a lot more work than I find myself doing now!
I get it depends on the individual and there are a lot of other ways to earn more than that out there but not many avenues for myself. And possibly for a lot lore graft. I’ve never looked back and am happy to answer any questions to help others.