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Careers at SFRS

Every one of our members of staff plays a crucial role in making Scotland safer.

Whether it’s our front line firefighters, accountants, fire prevention staff who work with people in their communities every day, or any other one of the wide variety of roles that make up the Service, you can be certain that we are working hard to ensure people in Scotland are as safe as possible.

Working for us is a rewarding experience. Whilst we offer a very competitive salary and benefits package, excellent training, development and opportunities to progress your career, many of the people who work for us say that the biggest benefit they get, is the job itself - playing your own part in an organisation that saves lives.

We also believe in nurturing talent and developing future leaders and for that we need people with the determination and enthusiasm to succeed. As a member of our staff you will be encouraged to follow a Personal Development Plan to progress your career against recognised goals.

Training requirements are different for each role, but we take an all-round approach to your learning and development, so you will know that whatever job you take on, you will always have the skills to do it - and to do it well.

You can read our frequently asked questions on being a Wholetime firefighter, as well as common questions asked for Retained firefighters. 


Employee Benefits

In addition to the job satisfaction and the pride linked with working for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, employees have access to a wide range of benefits including:.

  • A competitive salary and pension scheme
  • A range of excellent policies including those that promote a work life balance
  • Excellent training and career progression opportunities
  • Generous leave entitlement that increases with service
  • Access to ‘mylifestyle’ for saving/ discount schemes, including tax savings through our salary sacrifice schemes
  • Access  to benefits such as The Fire Fighters Charity / SFRS Family Support Trust for you and your family 
  • Access to gym facilities and Health and Wellbeing services and advice

Uniformed Roles

As many of our firefighters will tell you, the biggest benefit they get is the satisfaction from the job itself. Our firefighters are the type of people that want to make a difference, the type of people that want to learn something new every time they come to work - the type of people that want to prevent incidents happening but  are  able to  save lives and prevent damage if they do.

very day our crews work with people in their communities making sure that people are armed with all the information they need to stay safe and prevent incidents happening in the first place. That safety and prevention message is a key part of a firefighter’s role.

There are five types of firefighter roles:

  • Wholetime: A position for full time firefighters based in one of our wholetime community fire stations
  • Retained Duty System (RDS): Part time, on a call out basis and predominantly based in some of the more rural areas of Scotland
  • Volunteer: On a call out basis, and predominantly based in some of the more remote villages and islands within Scotland
  • Community Response Units (CRUs): CRUs are normally staffed by up to 12 people who are trained to deal with heath and forestry fires as well as, in some cases, road traffic collisions.  CRUs are also involved in some of our key community fire safety activities, such as Home Fire Safety Visits.
  • Firefighter (Control): Our state of the art Operations Support Centres deal with all emergency 999 calls and the subsequent mobilisation of resources to respond to fires and other incidents

Whilst many of our firefighters believe that the biggest benefit they get is the job itself you can also expect:

  • A rewarding career
  • A competitive salary and pension scheme
  • A range of excellent policies including those that promote a work life balance
  • Excellent training and career progression opportunities
  • Generous leave entitlement that increases with service
  • Personalised range of employee benefits available to you and your family too
  • Access to gym facilities