By 2015 I'll be a level 9 Flt Lt. I'll also be knocking on the door of promotion. From a purely "looking after number one" point of view, all I really want to know is will it be worth it? Will it be worth the grief of sucking up 5 years of crappy SO2 jobs and secondary duties (which in my branch really are pretty rubbish)? 5 more years of pay increments may make those secondary duties and crap postings a little easier to swallow, but if they career average earn my last 5 years as an SO2 all the way back to being a Fg Off then it begs the question "what's the point"?
Is this how it'll work?
When I get to Level 9 that's it, no more increments, zilch, I'm not getting any more pay rises. The carrot on the stick has always been "work a bit harder, put in the extra hours and get promoted", as the pension is final salary so it's worth sucking it up for the benefits i'll accrue in later years. Now with the final salary bit only protected until 2015, if like me you want to leave by 2020, all of a sudden where's the incentive?