UK job prospects for cadets
 

What are the prospects in the UK at the moment/following year for cadet positions? I have finished my ATPL exams and almost ready to take the plunge and start a CPL/ME-IR course. My reservations being the lack of jobs for frozen UK ATPL holders, with Ryanair hiring only EASA and easyJet hiring straight from CAE. I reckon it will cost me the best part of £30k to finish my training which is a lot of money for me and not a decision I take lightly.

I understand nobody has a crystal ball but any input is greatly appreciated.

You have done the exams so you may as well finish the flight training. There are avenues of flying to explore outside of the airlines. The only cadet type position for modular does seem to be Jet2's Pilot Apprentice Scheme. Even Wizz Air seem to be mainly recruiting integrated from Skyborne and L3.

So as a modular you will probably need to look for other avenues (turbo prop, Instructing). I know in 2019 modular started to gain even acceptance, and integrated training offers no real training value over modular.

So what have you got, PPL, NR and ATPL exams? How many hours? You shouldn't be spending anywhere near 30k.

If you can keep your current employment and take a career break to finish training and see how the land lies, maybe that gives you something to fall back on and ride out any waves. Airlines, or more specifically LCC's will ALWAYS recruit cadets as they are cheap to employ, something Ryanair, easy, Wizz and Jet2 have done for years. Where they will recruit from? Well you clearly know more than I would be able to tell you. But any decision to embark on training is always a bit of step into the dark. I'm pretty sure nobody starting their training mid 2019 thought they wouldn't get into a jet until 2022. My only real advice is to make sure you can afford whatever decision you take and to have a financial plan for all job situations. Best of luck with everything.

I got the same question as you, I guess to have an outside option working in other industries would be a good idea. When the aviation industry is fully recovered we might see more opportunities.

If you are aged over 37.... don't bother

My answer would be an unhelpful - I just don't know. I'm increasingly convinced that there is a building pilot shortage masked by the current problems with ground staff. I can't help wondering where we would be without the current raft of cancellations. I know the flight training industry always trumpets 'the coming pilot shortage' but I wonder if this time its not a cry of 'wolf', it might just be true - it had to happen one day. Look across the pond at the US recruitment problems for a starter. On top of this most of the conversations I have had with my colleagues that run integrated or integrated-type ATOs indicate courses running at 25% to 30% of capacity - there's no-one, or at least not enough, coming through the integrated ststem, although modular still seems strong it is more slow to react to demand issues. It's not impossible that when the mist clears airlines who have not secured a flow of ab-initio pilots will be badly caught out. PS don't believe everything you hear, Wizzair require EASA licences. Jet2 are an example of an airline that does have some foresight, as are Ryanair. CAE have collared the ab-initio feed into Easyjet unless they are unable to provide the quantity and quality that Easy require. Time will tell ....

The whole economy seems a bit strange at the moment, very high employment yet a cost-of-living crisis. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bumper summer this year due to pent-up demand followed by a considerable slowdown, especially if wages fail to keep pace with inflation. Travel is discretionary spending and high fuel costs make airline travel more expensive.

I imagine the effects of the pandemic and overall economic uncertainty are making self-funded integrated training much less attractive than was previously the case.

If interest rates go up considerably, the €110k the programme requires is going to be a lot more expensive to borrow, if the interest charged reaches 10% per annum (ambitiously high, I know), that's nearly €1000 a month just to cover the interest at the start of repayments, there's no suggestion of it being bonded so would total repayments at the start be higher than the net wage packet? It would rule out the middle-class parents remortgaging their homes and wouldn't the sort of parents who had that amount of money in cash be trying to push their offspring into other careers, especially after seeing the effect Covid had on the industry? I wonder if candidate quality would drop so much the airline would ever consider funding the training?