Latest UK Armed Forces manning figures released

Fig­ures show­ing that the UK Armed Forces are cur­rent­ly at 99.7 per cent of their full-time trained strength require­ment have been released today by the MOD.

Junior Sol­diers grad­u­a­tion parade at the Army Foun­da­tion Col­lege in Har­ro­gate, North York­shire (stock image) Source: Chris Bark­er, Min­istry of Defence, UK Click to enlarge

This is up from 97.4 per cent a year ago and shows a con­tin­u­ing upward trend. 

18,630 new recruits have joined the UK Reg­u­lar Forces in the 12 months to 30 June 2010. This is a decrease of 5,010 from the 12 months to 30 June 2009 as the Armed Forces are now very near­ly ful­ly-manned, mean­ing there is a reduced intake requirement. 

The sta­tis­tics also show that the num­ber of peo­ple leav­ing the trained strength of the UK Reg­u­lar Forces in the 12 months to 30 June 2010 has fall­en by 9.8 per cent (1,990 peo­ple) com­pared with the same peri­od a year ago. 

As at 1 July 2010, the full-time trained strength of the UK Armed Forces was 178,380, against a tar­get of 178,880. This com­pris­es 173,930 UK Reg­u­lar Forces, 830 Full-Time Reserve Ser­vice per­son­nel and 3,610 Gurkhas. 

Under Sec­re­tary of State for Defence, Andrew Robathan, said: 

“It is encour­ag­ing to see that a career in our Armed Forces is prov­ing to be a pop­u­lar choice, so much so that we are at almost 100 per cent of our man­ning requirement. 

“Our per­son­nel are some of the best in the world and the work they are doing in oper­a­tional the­atres and back in the UK demon­strates this. 

“Although the num­bers of peo­ple we need to recruit have reduced, recruit­ment con­tin­ues, and, with more peo­ple stay­ing in the Armed Forces too, we con­tin­ue to strength­en all three Services.” 

Since 1 July 2009, the pro­por­tion of females in the UK Reg­u­lar Forces has remained sta­t­ic at 12.1 per cent for offi­cers, and risen from 9.0 per cent to 9.1 per cent for oth­er ranks. 

The per­cent­age of UK Reg­u­lar Forces from eth­nic minor­i­ty back­grounds has remained sta­t­ic at 6.6 per cent of UK Reg­u­lar Forces since 1 July 2009. 

See Relat­ed Links for the full UK Armed Forces Quar­ter­ly Man­ning Report. 

Press release
Min­istry of Defence, UK 

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