Appologies to those in the ATCO 3 world but the figures I use are for my unit. NATS has only a certain pot of money for our pay, and we have 2 options
1 After validation we progress to a pay scale as current, approx 30000 to 55000
or
2 We all go to a single point of about 40000
Think of spending your entire career relying on annual pay rise for increase and retiring on a % of 40000 as against retiring on a % of 55000, and annual increments for the first 10 years or so. Too many ATCO`s suffer from the same disease as our management, ie look no further than the end of your nose and sod what happens tommorrow.