Back to Fire Service

Good team, good shift pattern, money not bad.

Other people undermining what we do

Every day is different

Dealing with traumatic incidents

Work life balance, interesting work

Poor pay for the work we do. Older member discriminate younger members

well respected

poor employer appreciation

Helping people

Demands on time

I joined to use my skills to help people and I still really enjoy that aspect of the job. It's a great feeling when you've just rescued someone, saved their home or cut them from their car and handed them safely over to paramedics. It's what I joined to do

The pay isn't enough to support a family or even get a mortgage here in the south east. The take home pay is around £1900 per month. Can be around £2000 if you're on duty on a bank holiday or pick up a shout at the end of a couple of shifts, but that's rare. If you have children you will most certainly need to take on a second job on your off duty days which in turn means you are constantly exhausted.
It did come with the benefit of a very good pension to compensate for the poor pay, but the government have now taken that away and replaced it with one that pays far less and probably not worth signing up to.
If you do sign up for it, you'd need to work untill age 60 and do 40 years service for a full pension which would still be much much less than the previous pension and almost certainly unachievable.
Management are constantly after more work and attack our conditions almost daily. To protect ourselves we have to really be on the ball and consider very carefully what is being asked of us. This has obviously lead to a less than happy work environment unfortunately.
I don't want to tell people not to join, but be aware this job is being attacked constantly and probably isn't the job you think it is. It certainly isn't the job I joined at the start of my career

shift pattern

Dealing with some people

Saving lives

Can’t book time off

Shift patterns and time off from work

pay is low and lots to learn

Working with a great set of people

The polltics

Working as a team

The jobs you go to

Different everyday.
Good people.
Helping others
Shift pattern

Senior Management
Salary
Lack of respect

The team

The organisation and night shifts

shift pattern

pay has not kept track with cost of living

Helping proole

Not getting recognised

No two days are the same

Shift work - nights

Shift pattern. Every day is different

Poor annual pay rises

The people I work with

Upper management

Helping people and firefighting

Dead people

Varied , challenging and rewarding

Sone of the things we have to deal with professionally and often unsociable hours.