He attended the Staff College, Camberley as a student, from 1924 to 1925, alongside fellow students such as Ivor Thomas, Noel Beresford-Peirse, Vyvyan Pope, Douglas Graham, Michael O'Moore Creagh, Daril Watson, Archibald Nye, Humfrey Gale and Noel Irwin, all of whom rose to high command in the next war. He served in numerous staff positions at the War Office until receiving a position as an instructor at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Due to a lack of promotion in his own regiment, Godwin-Austen transferred to the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI) and commanded the 2nd Battalion, from 1936 to 1937, before being employed with the British Military Mission to the Egyptian Army, from 1937 to 1938. His next appointment, during the Arab revolt in Palestine, in successive command of the 13th and 14th Infantry Brigades, the latter post being held until August 1939, shortly before the Second World War began.