Medical Assistant
Working ashore, on ships and submarines, our Medical Assistants are responsible for routine healthcare provisions and trained to respond to medical emergencies in any environment all over the world.
- £18,500 - £52,500
- No qualifications
- Surface Fleet
- Medical
- Rating level
£24,000
£51,000
Zero
Free
6 weeks
Travel

Our work takes us all over the world, from NHS hospitals, to working on board ship or on front line deployments.
Role details
What you’ll do
Being a Medical Assistant in the Royal Navy means embarking on a career that offers more variety and adventure than you’d ever experience in civilian medicine.
From the day you join you’ll gain new skills. Pushing yourself to the limit in some unique and challenging environments, you could be training with Special Forces in West Africa, or working in primary care on board a ship in the Persian Gulf.
Your role
- Make a real difference to some essential operations. That might mean being the only medic on board ship, and taking responsibility for the general healthcare of an entire crew.
- Use your medical expertise where it’s needed most, providing primary healthcare to trauma victims in conflict zones all over the world
- When you’re not on deployment you will be working in a Royal Navy shore base or even with the Royal Marines. There’s no equivalent civilian role, so you’ll gain all the skills you need.
- Work across all medical departments, learning directly from specialists in a number of different fields
Pay & benefits
- A salary that rises to over £24,000 as soon as you finish training
- Earn in excess of £51,000 as your career progresses
- An excellent pension scheme
- Six weeks of paid holiday every year
- Free medical and dental care
Skills for life
Qualifications you'll gain
- Attain a Level 3 Senior Healthcare Support Worker Apprenticeship
- Study for GCSEs, A-Levels, NVQs or even a degree, paid for by us
- Gain specialist vocational qualifications as your career progresses
Skills you'll develop
- Learn about first aid, environmental and preventative medicine, anatomy and physiology
- Develop your skills in specialist areas, like pharmacy or nursing
Eligibility
- You'll need to be aged between 17 to 39
- No qualifications are required for this role
- You must be a British or Irish national, a Commonwealth citizen, or a Dual National. Bual Nationality restrictions may apply
- A Body Mass Index (BMI) between 18 and 28
- Pass the Naval Swimming Test
Skills & Interests
- A quick thinker with a passion for helping people
- Great team players who thrive on working with others
- Enthusiasm for working in high pressure environments
- Hands on people who can react fast in an emergency
Joining Process
From picking your role to starting on your first day, these are the steps you'll take to join as a rating.
Submit an application
Defence Aptitude Assessment (DAA)
You’ll be tested on: Verbal Reasoning, Numerical Reasoning, Work Rate, Spatial Reasoning, Electrical Comprehension and Mechanical Comprehension.
To prepare, you can practise the DAA
Interview
Candidate Preparation Course (CPC)
Start training
Career Progression
Got a question?
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