Promotion in specialty vs Promotion in rank

[Robb Mavins]

I am curious as to how many forces (past or present) have used or still have a separate hierarchy for rank and one for jobs or experience.

By that I mean some forces had / have a ranking system that allows for promotion in rank and a separate one for experience level / qualifications.

All forces have “qualifications for promotion” i.e you must be able to do this in order to make “Petty Officer”. Generally this combined with time in grade puts you in the “promotion zone”. No guarantee of promotion but you have the basic required skill set for consideration of promotion.

What I am really talking about is a system where you could become a sonar expert without ever necessarily making “Petty Officer” or a flight engineer with out ever necessarily becoming a a “sergeant”.

I am speaking of “technical grades” versus “non commissioned officer” status. I am also trying to use general terms that won’t send people off on the wrong tangent.

But By example:
In the RCN and most commonwealth navies you had substantive promotions and non-substantive promotions.
Substantive was “Lets promote Smith from Able Seaman to Leading Seaman” .ie. a promotion in rank.
Non Substantive was “Smith has qualified as a Torpedo Operator Level II, give him the badge” ie a technical or specialty promotion.
What is interesting is that you did not have to advance in rank (substantive) to advance in specialty (non-substantive). Smith would advance in pay and status but not rank, he could even spend his whole career as Able Seaman in rank but be qualified to operate weapons that his supervisor a Petty Officer could not. (a Canadian, Richard Wright spent 15 years in the Pre WWII RCN and left as Petty Officer 2nd class. Falling on hard times and being in Bristol, he mustered into the RN in 1932 as an Able Seaman. He spent 7 years as an Able Seaman, even though he was qualified as a Torpedo Instructor (TI) and did that duty for the last 4 years of his career (teaching RN Petty Officers)

Another example would be the US Army from 1920 -43 with the Technician Grades.
This started out the same, you could spend your whole career and make Technician 2nd Grade, never having made Corporal, you would be paid at a First Sergeants pay but still outranked by a Corporal but senior to all in your “trade”. In practice this worked for a while but because the technicians wore the same stripes as NCO’s but with a T” in the middle it was hard to ignore the guy with all the stripes. They tried again after the war with specialist grades (without the stripes and that worked a little better)

Again, Today most forces have these kind of qualifications, but they are based on a rank, in order to make “Corporal” or “Petty Officer” within your trade / specialty / MOS/ MOC (however your job is classified) you need to have these qualifications. So in most you can not make “senior technician xxx grade without also being also “Sergeant” or whatever in rank.
So looking to how many forces (past or present) have used or still have a separate hierarchy for rank and one for jobs or experience.

[Bornholmer]

Well it is possible, for example, in the Russian Navy, where you can be, let us say, Apprentice Torpedoman, Torpedoman, or Chief Torpedoman< without being promoted to PO rank...

[Zdzislaw Rudzki]

Just a short remark regarding Polish Army - in fact this relates to my serving which was in 1980. There was then a separate scheme for "military rank" and "specialist grade". So (in my specialisation) there could be a radiospecialist of 1st, 2nd or 3rd grade holding any of the NCO ranks ....