ARMY RESERVE

Certainly! Individuals are paid per day or part day of service and these are known as Reserve Service Days (RSD) and the pay is the same as the regular army daily rate of pay plus 5% X Factor which is included to compensate for the occasional nuisances of service.

Pay rates are decided each year and are increased in line with rank and seniority. There is a Final Salary Pension scheme based on years of service and any payment in retirement will depend on time served overall and rank and seniority on retirement.

There is paid leave which is added as an extra day’s pay for each ten days served. There is no need to go on leave to get this as it is paid automatically when an individual has served 10 days.

Travel and subsistence costs are met generally up to a maximum of 50 miles from the unit.

A tax-free bounty is paid if all training and mandatory tests have been completed together with the required number of RSDs. These are 27 for local units and 19 for national. The bounty ranges from £470 in the first year to £1,862 after five years.

You'll need to do your basic training - but this can be arranged to fit in around your day job. You don't have to do all the training at once. It can be completed in shorter modules or in one go.

After a candidate has successfully passed selection and been accepted into service, he or she will have to undergo basic recruit training either over several weekends or in a consolidated period of weeks.

Then there is a further special to arm, skill-based period of training which will equip the individual for service in the specific unit of choice and in many cases equip a soldier with new skills that are readily transferrable to civilian jobs.

After that you will be expected to attend a training evening each week (generally Tuesday or Wednesday evenings), one or two weekends training a month and two weeks continuous training which may be the unit collective training camp or may be a course.

National units normally do two weekends and two weeks.

Officers will do different training and a lot of it will be at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS).

Yes, as an Army Reservist, you may be asked to go on operations, working alongside full time soldiers and officers. This could be in the UK or deployed overseas.

Individuals are liable for mobilisation (to be called up) under the Reserve Forces Act 1996 (RFA96) but this is normally with the agreement of the individual and the employer and is voluntary but may be compulsory if the Government decides.