Congratulations! I can't offer anything useful about the way NATS works these days but would reiterate rab-k's comments about future prospects when you have aerodrome ratings. If, after getting qualified, you're not happy with where you have ended up, there is a huge range of opportunities available to you, and whilst you can never confidently predict controller numbers needed in the future, there will probably be increasing demand as people realise that the promise that AI will do everything isn't actually true! And, of course, it's only my personal view but I find en-route to be really boring
.