The Warrant Officer concept is drawn from naval tradition, where a highly-prized technical specialist might enter the navy directly as a ranking officer by receiving a warrant from the admiralty, rather than a commission borne from prior service experience.

Warrant Officers typically have backgrounds in scientific fields or highly specialized technology areas, which is why they’re most often found in science and engineering branches.

Entry and Training

Warrant Officers join the ISDC from advanced careers in specialist technical or scientific fields. Unlike the military careers of their commissioned colleagues, warrant officers have undertaken exclusively civilian career development prior to their entry to the ISDC.

Warrant officers receive the same basic military training as any other military candidate and are assigned rank on the basis of their specialist experience. So, while Warrant Officers lack the career-dedicated military training received by commissioned officers, their specialist focus on research and training results in knowledge and experience that would not have been produced from a purely military career.

Career Paths

The Warrant Officer program allows technical specialists to operate and contribute within a military chain of command while having their experience and seniority recognised appropriately. This means that Warrant Officers, unlike civilian advisers, are able to undertake active duty aboard vessels.  It’s possible for the most senior of Warrant Officers to assume command positions.

A Warrant Officer career will allow you to pursue scientific or technical endeavor with minimal constraint from military protocol and structure, while still allowing you to operate cohesively in active duty environments. You’ll be expected to continue your career research while in service, although you should expect publication of your work to be subject to classification for the foreseeable future.