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The UK’s official graduate careers website
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After initial officer training at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst , Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth or Royal Air Force College, Cranwell , you are posted to your chosen regiment or corps, to a ship, or to a squadron or station where you will undertake specialist command training before assuming your first command. Your first command in the Army will be as a platoon or troop commander, responsible for a unit of up to 30 staff and their equipment. This might be four armoured fighting vehicles, or tanks, together with their associated weapons and systems. The responsibility will be similar in the Royal Navy if you are trained for ship-based duties. When on flying duties in any of the three forces, your responsibility will be less for staff and more for the highly complex and expensive piece of equipment. With promotion, your responsibilities will increase, in terms of both numbers of men and quantities of equipment.
The normal route for career officers in all three forces is to achieve the command of a unit by the age of about 40. You may, therefore, be selected for a sequence of command and staff courses and further professional courses, which may include postgraduate study at the Defence College of Management & Technology , or other universities or colleges, depending upon your specialism. Further promotion is normally to increasingly senior staff posts with increased responsibility and may lead to a command and staff training course at the Joint Services Command and Staff College as a preparation for a senior command or managerial appointment. Such appointments are not limited to roles within one's own service but may be joint service posts or involve secondment to international bodies such as the United Nations (UN) or the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) .
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