He retained command until September 1938, when he was appointed to the Admiralty as Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, although he did not actually take up this post until December 1938. He accepted this shore job with reluctance since he loathed administration, but the Board of Admiralty's high regard of him was evident. For six months during an illness of Admiral Sir Roger Backhouse, the then First Sea Lord, he deputised for Backhouse on the Committee of Imperial Defence and on the Admiralty Board. In 1939 he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB), becoming known as Sir Andrew Cunningham.