Future naval occupations determined to ensure readiness

Setting the Conditions for the Future Fleet

The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) is entering a period of purposeful change. Change that is focused on ensuring our people, skills, and structures are ready for the fleet we will operate in the decades ahead.

New platforms, new combat systems, and increasingly complex operating environments demand a workforce that is agile, adaptable, and aligned to how we fight, operate, and sustain the fleet.

How We Got Here

To meet this challenge, the RCN undertook a comprehensive Occupation Analysis (OA). This work examined what sailors do at sea, ashore, and in training establishments, how technology has changed the nature of work, and where legacy occupation structures no longer reflect modern reality.

The outcome of that analysis was clear. While our people continue to deliver outstanding operational effect, the way our occupations are structured has not kept pace with evolving demands. In December, the OA presented Commander of the RCN with a course of action to transition nine existing RCN-managed occupations into thirteen modernized occupations. This change is designed to better align skills, training, career pathways, and workforce management, and to create a more resilient workforce that can grow alongside new capabilities, such as advanced combat systems and future classes of ships.

The following illustrates the redistribution of job tasks, duty areas, and responsibilities from legacy occupations to the newly designed occupations.

Where We Are Now

With this occupation change now endorsed, the Navy is moving into implementation planning. This phase focuses on translating analysis into an executable transition plan: One that is deliberate and carefully balances personnel, training, fleet readiness, and career progression.

At this stage, no individual changes are being taken. Instead, the Navy is deliberately sequencing the work to ensure transitions are coherent, fair, and operationally sound. This includes close coordination across formations, schools, fleet authorities, and headquarters.

What We're Hearing

As implementation planning continues, the Navy is tracking the questions most frequently raised by sailors, which seem to be related to pay considerations and the protection of specialized skill sets. Pay implications for new occupations will be examined through established review processes at the appropriate stage of planning, with the intent of ensuring transparency and consistency across the workforce. Similarly, occupation transitions will be carefully sequenced and phased, considering specialization, time invested within skill streams, and operational requirements, to avoid unintended impacts.

What Comes Next

Over the coming months, the RCN will engage broadly to refine the implementation plan and address key considerations raised through stakeholder and formation engagement. Dedicated working groups and senior-level governance are being established to address key areas including personnel management, training, recruiting, pay and compensation, and required policy updates. As planning matures, additional information will be shared.