NATS resumes student controller scheme

LONDON - For the first time since before the pandemic, people can apply to join the NATS student controller scheme, with basic training based at one of their two training facilities in Hampshire and Gloucester. The British air navigation service provider is looking to attract more female talent to it control facilities.

NATS resumes its student controller scheme. Once passing an online assessment, successful candidates go through around nine months of vigorous initial training, before being posted to an airport tower or control centre to complete their learning and assessments.

"Successful controllers come from all walks of life, but NATS is seeking to redress the gender imbalance that exists across the aviation industry, with the ambition that half of its new intake to be made up of women," NATS said.

NATS currently has around 1,600 controllers whose job is to safely manage the flow of aircraft through the UK’s busy and complex airspace, as well as at 15 of the country’s busiest airports.

"We have many wonderful women controllers, but they make up only around only 30 percent of the total and we want to change that," Helen Fuge, Head of Talent and HR Services at NATS, said.