Control Room Staff

When someone dials 999 and asks for the Fire and Rescue Service they will be put through to a member of the control room staff. Control operators are the first line of contact between members of the public needing assistance and the Fire Service. They are responsible for the immediate mobilisation of crews and fire appliances together with any specialist equipment that is required. These posts attract varying rates of pay which are listed in the following section of this page.

Highly trained, they utilise a range of sophisticated information technology and must be able to react quickly, think fast and take and relay instructions accurately. Control rooms can be very busy places and staff must be able to function well under pressure and work as part of a close-knit Watch team.

In any one shift, control operators will deal with hundreds of calls, many of which are life-threatening emergencies, others which are less serious but still frightening or upsetting to the people involved. Control operators need to have highly developed people and communication skills - would you be able to keep a terrified mum talking on the phone, keeping her calm and giving her safety advice while she awaited the arrival of a fire crew? But there is a lot more to working as a control room team member than sending fire engines out to incidents. Control operators carry out a wide range of other duties and must have a meticulous eye for detail. They are required to maintain comprehensive data relating to current incidents, resources in deployment, equipment and system faults, wholetime and retained crewing levels across the Brigade and other any relevant information. They act as a central link between headquarters and stations, crews, officers and other staff and also deal with queries from members of the public and the media.

In addition to their standard role, they will undertake special projects such as evaluating a new data recording system, best practice reviews and other work with police and ambulance services.

As you can see, the life of a control room operator is a busy and very demanding one, but also varied and immensely satisfying. You can go home after every tour of duty knowing you have helped people and made a real difference in your community.

Pay Scales

Table 1: Salaries (for operational staff) in the Fire Service with effect from 1st July 2009.

Use these links to find out more about wholetime (fulltime) firefighting.

• Roles - Home
• Wholetime Firefighting - Home
• Retained Firefighting - Home
• Control Operators
• Support Staff
• Current Vacancies