man friday - I wasn't thinking of career development, but as someone who was trained to go to TC and validate approach radar, I don't see why people can't be trained like that for less busy units. Anyway, if someone at a NATS unit is tower only, there can be a ceiling on their salary in certain circumstances (for new units like Gib and Briss) whereas I'm told that salary cap doesn't apply if they validate radar first. Airfield contracts are too tight to have staff valid in only one position, so I would have thought that 'career development' will follow as soon as the unit can afford, for operational reasons, to send the ATCO on an ADC course. You need to think outside the box with this one.