Silsoe,

For an experienced corporate captain you are looking more at £65k+ and a chief pilot £70k+. Know of a couple of jobs for captains going to £75-80k.

The unusual jobs out there are paying alot more.

At the end of the day your starting salary will depend on their need for a pilot, the pilots available and the salary you can get them up to.

FNW

~ 110K GBP NET give or take, fully found.

And yes it is a little unusual!

Open another bottle of that schadenfreude!
 

I think we should be very careful about equating experience with safety. I should think that for every incident/accident that involves a relatively inexperienced pilot there exists another incident/accident that involves an 'experienced' pilot. :(
Just think of the occurrences that have affected the UK onshore public service fraternity.

Very true handy.

Mine was a hope that incidents don't start to increase in our business, due to circumstances within someones control.

Bearing in mind ShyTs earlier post of;
Today is just the start, it'll be interesting to see how wide the goalmouth becomes!!

How Much!!
 

SilsoeSid,

The average is £3-5K less than your figure above.

More to follow.

NLJ

payment figure...............
 

Why is it that ex-mil pilots tend to seek ems roles?
or is it the other way round with such jobs requiring ex-mil pilots?
I'd suspect it is convenience/availability/stability..............

Food for thought as current corporate/private sector is having to pay well above the figures mentioned so far to attract/retain suitably-qualified pilots.
Throw in the company car, LOL, health/pension and you're on a par/surpassing the off-shore folk.
Although not many onshore corporate concerns can offer all that and only want you to work half the year:{

EESDL makes a good point of the package on offer, not just the headline rate of remuneration.

How much is loss of license worth? or a company car? or health care? Also the FTL being worked, some FTL's are more workable than others.

The direct employment route also has the advantage of not having share holders to pay so savings made their can be shared between Police and Pilots.

Unfortunately, it appears that after the first contract, some police authorities want to make savings by reducing pilot salaries in a climate of the opposite!

A certain police authority is paying line pilots, who are at the top their scale, approximately £2K less than the starting salary as advertised with North Wales and Lancashire.

Their HR dept have failed to carry out the correct market factors salary review using information that is either old or incorrect.

HR state that they are waiting for a Hay job evaluation report to be published.

Hay were asked separately whether they could conduct a salary review for the constabularies pilots. The reply was " we do not have sufficient data to be able to produce a valid benchmark".

I think the answer for the Police Authorities is in the fact that Pilot jobs for the Police are not being filled. We all know that it not just the advertised positions, but the word of mouth contact as well, that shows the market for Pilots that fill the Polices required experience and skills level is buoyant. If one authority is paying below what is becoming the norm, then representations should be made to alleviate this.

Salaries
 

The response to my request for salary information was dissapointingly small, but as a few of you are keen to know what I have found out I'll post it anyway and see what response it generates.

OFFSHORE
1st Officer : £40,000 - £50,000
Captain: £67,000 - £85,000

CORPORATE/PUBLIC TRANSPORT
£62,000 - £85,000

AIR AMBULANCE
£45,000 - £60,000

POLICE
£42,000 - £62,000

In addition to the figures above, company cars, healthcare, pensions, Loss of Licence cover and allowances need to taken into account.

I doubt there are any surprises with the figures above. Obviously pocession of an IR will yield higher earnings but as Police flying does not require one, we are already at a disadvantage with regard earnings ability. It should be noted that the average for a police pilot is only early to mid 40's. The highest figure quoted is the exception and I am reliably informed is being paid to line pilots at a unit in the SE.

Pilots belong to a profession that is more highly scrutinised and routinely checked upon, OPC/LPC, medicals, maintenance approvals etc etc, than any other profession that comes to mind. Police pilots operate routinely at all hours of the day and night, don't have the benefit of a co-pilot to share the aviation oriented workload and frequently have to work like one armed paper hangers when dealing with rapidly changing situations on the ground. I know from the PMs I did receive that there is a feeling of being undervalued, and I think it's proven by the poor response to vacancies that recently became available at Lancashire and North Wales.

NLJ.

NLJ,

I believe that one of the police contractors offers only around £40K as the basic for a line pilot.

As you mention, the highest rate for police pilot pay is found at one directly employed Unit. They were able to argue for such a high rate of pay when almost 50% of their line pilots left in just a few months. Not surprisingly, since then the turnover rate has been almost zero.
There are some other reasons why that Unit is a special case.

I don't suppose every gash pilot flying a B206 is on £60K+. I suspect that category relates to IR rated ME jockeys, and that there will be many CAT pilots on less than that. I recently was offered (and turned down) £45K for a corporate job (with IR).

I suspect that there is likely to be a big spread in the salaries for any of these groups. We don't discuss salaries candidly very much, and the employers play their cards close to their chests.

The figures certainly make interesting reading. Comments from anyone in these categories would be interesting.

Salaries
 

I've been following but haven't posted a salary as I have never, nor do I expect to ever, work in the UK. I didn't think the info would be much use to you.

OTOH, I disagree about the idea of playing the cards close to the chest. I have always been very candid when pilots ask me what I am making in this business. The biggest weapon the 'low budget operators' have against us is our own unwillingness to share information.

I remember very well when the base I was working at was taken over by new management (it was in West Africa). Our new offers of employment contained a clause forbidding us from revealing the contents of our salary and renumeration package (offered) to anyone, citing it as privileged information. The majority of us posted them on the bulletin board in the pilot's office. We refused to be used against each other. The base manager nearly had an aneurism when he saw it, but was at least smart enough to walk away. We would not be bullied or play games with side deals. In the end only 1 of the 24 of us (pilots and engineers) accepted the offer.

Senior management here has told me many times in the last few months that "if you can't get a good rate for your helicopter today, you shouldn't be signing the contract". It is the same for us. If we aren't getting what we feel we deserve, we should be working somewhere else where we will.

BTW: as an offshore captain on the AS332L in Canada, my annual salary would buy GBP 51,888.

I wonder how long it will be before all police authorities realise that direct employment is the most cost effective way of managing pilotage in the UK. It seems to me that we all know that money can be saved as well as giving Pilots a fare remuneration package. Indeed, with the successful roll out of the Engineering and Maintenance set up in Suffolk a new dimension is established. Total in house Air Support is a reality. I think PAS, Premiair, Bond etc should take note.

Maxchat,

Are the Eastern Counties pilots directly employed now?

You are right in your logic and everyone knows that it is a cost effective way of employing pilots but.............

One of the main reasons some of the forces I have worked for don't go for the cheaper option is the fear of a pilot going long term sick or not being able to recruit the right pilots. If they pay through the nose for pilots they know that it is not their problem to get pilots,it is the contactors and any shortfalls they can use to beat them with in contract negotiation.

Most directly employed forces still have to have the back-up of contractors for leave relief and sickness. If everyone goes directly employed it may not be worth the contractors maintaining a pool of floaters (no pun intented!) to cover the various aircraft types currently used in the UK. The solution is to have their own pool but who manages it, who has priority and has is it funded?

The answer, which has been around for sometime, is a Home Office/ACPO/Government pilot wing to cover all pilot and training requirements nationally. And I think we know the likelihood of that...........
FNW

One of the uk offshore operators pays low time(<500hrsTT), CPL(IR) holders, new to the industry, a shade over £34k.

An interesting read this thread.

Having recently left university and now looking to take the leap into the industry I have found it difficult to find concrete evidence of rotary salaries in different fields.

I am fortunate enough to have both PPL(A) and PPL(H) (although (H) is not now current), and it has always been a real financial consideration of mine the expense involved in rotary training. Training hours on even the basic R22 can often be twice that of a C152 or similar, or at least 75% higher. My PPL(H) easily cost more than twice what my (A) cost and I did the (H) in 2001.

It's a daunting prospect for new pilots, well it is for me anyway, that (in my, less than fully educated, opinion) there are still the same risks involved with large investment and no guarantee of a job when training in finished as there is in the fixed wing game, as all the wannabe airline pilots will attest. The problem with rotary is the elevated cost of training makes it significantly harder to afford off your own back with the help of a loan.

The rotary industry is something I will be looking into in more detail in the coming months, but as the outlay for fixed wing training is less, it is likely my aviation career will take that path. Unfortunately, given the choice, I'd choose rotary work any day of the week. The versatility and variety (given the right job) is attractive to me, and corporate work would be my goal.

Regain

I think I have to agree with what you are saying. I am civy though who is in it for the quality of the job first and money second.

There are two women Police pilots one in Belfast and one in Surrey.

Regain, good post!

Brilliant Stuff,

I too am a "civvy" pilot who is not in it primarily for the money. However I do believe that a person should be paid what he/she is worth and not what the employers can get away with.

We have a couple of shifts coming up that our provider is unable to fill with relief pilotage (have never been keen on the expression "Floater", reminds me of a Peter Kay advert) due to lack of pilots. This will result in our unit being unable to provide cover and having to rely on mutual aid from neighbouring forces. If any more pilots resign to pastures new or fall ill how many more shifts will be lost around the country?

NLJ.