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Royal Navy Reviews
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    Royal Navy Reviews

    Updated 18 October 2017
    186 reviews

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    Full-timePart-time
    3.6
    StarStarStarStarStar
    Rating TrendsRating Trends
    Recommend to a friend
    Approve of CEO
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    Sir Jonathon Band
    68 Ratings

    186 Employee Reviews

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    Pros

    • Good travel, good training, well looked after get paid to see the world (in 12 reviews)

    • Excellent training & Travel good long term career (in 10 reviews)

    Cons

    • Time away from home (obviously) and occasional "that's life in a blue suit" attitude to complaints (in 26 reviews)

    • time away from home on regular basis (in 34 reviews)

    More Pros and Cons

    1. "Best Time Of My Life"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I worked at Royal Navy full-time

      Pros

      Travel, Pension, Amazing, Wage, Housing

      Cons

      Nothing at all, only in need of more men and women

      Advice to Management

      Keep going, in need of more men/women and ships

    2. "Mine Clearance Diver"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
      Recommends

      I worked at Royal Navy full-time

      Pros

      Diving, EOD, IED, Weapon skills, Operational experience, life skills, Medical skills,

      Cons

      time away from home on regular basis

    3. "Weapons engineer"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Weapons Engineer in Portsmouth, South East England, England
      Current Employee - Weapons Engineer in Portsmouth, South East England, England
      Recommends
      Neutral Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I have been working at Royal Navy (More than 10 years)

      Pros

      See the world. Great pay. Team work. Military ethos.

      Cons

      Can't plan your family life

      Advice to Management

      Stabilise work life balance for retension.

      4. Is this helpful? The community relies on everyone sharing – Add Anonymous Review

    4. "It is what you make of it"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Leading Hand in Portsmouth, South East England, England
      Current Employee - Leading Hand in Portsmouth, South East England, England
      Recommends
      Neutral Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I have been working at Royal Navy full-time (More than 5 years)

      Pros

      Great career structure. Progression is there if you want it. Opportunity to travel. You make some great friends.

      Cons

      You will struggle to plan your life. It's a young man's game.

    5. "You are just a number."

      StarStarStarStarStar
      Current Employee - Anonymous Employee in Portsmouth, South East England, England
      Current Employee - Anonymous Employee in Portsmouth, South East England, England
      Doesn't Recommend
      Neutral Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      Pros

      Great people. There isn’t another sheer of employment that will give you the bond that the military will. Aye aye.

      Cons

      Management are out for themselves and their progression. Don’t let them tell you any different. Wake up, people are leaving because of you.

      Advice to Management

      Open your eyes.

    6. "Royal navy"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Weapons Engineer in Portsmouth, South East England, England
      Current Employee - Weapons Engineer in Portsmouth, South East England, England
      Doesn't Recommend
      Neutral Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I have been working at Royal Navy full-time (More than 3 years)

      Pros

      Easy working life, good opportunities for career progression if you are committed.

      Cons

      Can easily be called a lifestyle and not a job. Definitely not for everybody.

      Advice to Management

      Pay more attention to the lower ranks as these people are the future of the Navy

    7. "More PR than substance"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Fleet Air Arm in Portsmouth, South East England, England
      Former Employee - Fleet Air Arm in Portsmouth, South East England, England
      Doesn't Recommend
      Neutral Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I worked at Royal Navy full-time (More than 10 years)

      Pros

      You can see the world and do some cool stuff.

      Cons

      It is no longer a credible fighting force which would quickly show if it were called on to do so in a serious conflict.

      The benefits such as private education for children, pensions, sporting opportunities, housing quality, expenses have all been cut back massively.

      They want to do the same or possibly even more than previously which much fewer people and ships/aircraft.

      Advice to Management

      Be realistic about what can be achieved with what the Navy has and be honest with the tax-paying public and politicians.

    8. "Engineering technician submarines"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
      Recommends
      Neutral Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I worked at Royal Navy full-time

      Pros

      Good bunch of lads to work with and decent pay for submariners

      Cons

      Time away from home (obviously) and occasional "that's life in a blue suit" attitude to complaints.

    9. "RN"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee

      I worked at Royal Navy full-time

      Pros

      Good salary, benefits and travel

      Cons

      Difficult to achieve work-life balance

    10. Helpful (1)

      "Engineering Officer - Royal Fleet Auxiliary"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Engineering Officer - Royal Fleet Auxiliary in Portsmouth, South East England, England
      Former Employee - Engineering Officer - Royal Fleet Auxiliary in Portsmouth, South East England, England

      I worked at Royal Navy full-time (More than 10 years)

      Pros

      - Fantastic people to work with, excellent camaraderie and sense of belonging to a wider family.
       - RFA deck and engineering officers' core seafaring qualifications are civilian and STCW accredited, ie they are recognised worldwide and one can move to the civilian commercial sector without any retraining or additional qualifications required.
       - The service will pay for you to sit higher tickets and give you paid study leave to do so.
       - Better standard of accommodation on board than on RN warships. Everyone has their own cabin and officers have their own toilet/shower.
       - More formal than Merchant Navy but less so than Royal Navy.
       - More leave than Royal Navy. Typical rotation is four months on ship followed by three months on leave.
       - RFA engineer officers get far more practical experience swinging spanners than their RN counterparts.

       - Overall excellent life experience, many good friends made and good times had from the sublime to the ridiculous. After twelve years I found the service to be akin to a large extended family with a strong bond of belonging. Fantastic opportunities to gain skills, qualifications and experience that make you a superstar in "normal" jobs.

      Cons

      - Salary is lower than equivalent rank in the RN.
       - Below rate of inflation pay rises for many years now.
       - Pensions have been messed about with and are now worth far less than they were previously.
       - Chronic mismanagement of people by the service has led to low morale and toxic atmosphere between those on ships and shore side senior management.
       - Better remuneration (both leave and salary) is relatively easy to come by in the commercial sector especially for experienced officers with higher level tickets.
       - A Byzantine RN/MOD bureaucracy that often feels like it impedes you doing your job rather then supporting or enabling you.

       - Overall at times I was left incredibly frustrated, demoralised and devalued by poor management and those times became far more frequent in more recent years. I saw some absolutely astonishing briefs and communications from the people at the top that left me wondering what planet they were living on. It often felt to me that the service was being run into the ground in order to meet short term objectives or commitments and this left it in a perpetual state of crisis.

      Advice to Management

      - The engineering manpower crisis was caused by management treating the people as expendable resources rather than valuable assets.
       - Stick vs Carrot. Whilst the stick can be an appropriate method, using it to the exclusion of all else over a long term period can (and is!) damaging the service.
       - Consider that knee jerk short term solutions to long term problems might actually perpetuate those problems.
       - The recruitment literature and material for technical branch officers is utterly awful. Get an engineer to write it for you not a civil servant who has never seen the inside of an engine room.

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