Putting in the hours.

Fighting fires isn’t a nine to five job. We provide 24hr protection to the people of Greater Manchester. So if you’re thinking about joining the service, you’ll need to be willing to work shifts.

Each of our stations has five Watches: Amber, White, Green, Blue and Red. When you join a station, you’ll be allocated to a particular Watch. Each Watch works two day shifts (9am – 6pm) followed by two night shifts (6pm – 9am). This is known as a ‘tour of duty’. Once you’ve done your tour, you’ll get four days rest before starting the next one. And after seven tours, you’ll get a break of 18 days.

Outside of your tours, you’ll be scheduled in for a number of ‘rostered reserve’ days where you’ll need to be available to come in and provide extra cover if required. If you are needed, we’ll try to give you at least 48 hours notice. However, there may be occasions when we need to contact you at short notice (in the case of a large scale emergency, for example). So when you’re on ‘rostered reserve’, you’ll need to stay within the Greater Manchester area.

There are three main types of firefighter in our service: Whole-time, Retained and Whole-time Retained. The following will give you an idea of the hours involved for each role:

Whole-time Firefighter

‘Full-time’ firefighters generally work a 42 hour shift pattern, involving two day shifts (9am to 6pm), two night shifts (9pm to 6am) and four rest days in-between. On top of that, they’ll be expected to cover around 180 hours of ‘rostered reserve’ duty during the year.

Retained Firefighter

Our retained firefighters usually have a full-time job, but commit to offering us their services for a set number of hours each week. They’re paid an hourly rate, plus they receive a retaining fee and disturbance payments (if they’re called away from their job).

Whole-time Retained

We also offer the chance for full-time firefighters to be employed as retained firefighters. They can provide up to a maximum of 78 hours cover, although it’s rare they’ll be on active duty for that amount of time.