Ministers are ploughing £1.3bn into army recruitment to bolster the UK’s depleted armed forces and tackle a crisis of staff retention, The Independent can reveal.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) last month announced the creation of a new body, the Armed Forces Recruitment Service (AFRS), to streamline the hiring process and ensure the British military “remains ready to face emerging threats”.
It is set to launch in 2027 and will replace individual schemes run by the Royal Navy, British army, and Royal Air Force.
A contract for the delivery of AFRS, worth £1.3bn, was awarded to defence and security firm Serco and will run until March 2034.
It comes just weeks after the government announced plans to boost defence spending as the UK readies itself to provide peacekeeping troops to Ukraine as part of a plan to end the war with Russia.
The new programme is part of an attempt to turn the tide on the growing recruitment crisis plaguing Britain’s armed forces.
The MoD said it would remedy issues with inefficiencies and delays in recruitment that have led to fewer than one in 10 applicants joining the armed forces in 2023.
It comes months after the defence secretary said “deep-set problems” were affecting its ability to recruit and retain staff, confirming that, for the year previous, the armed forces had lost hundreds more full-time staff each month than it had been recruiting.
“Recruitment targets were set and missed every year; in the last year, service morale fell to record lows,” Mr Healey told the defence select committee in the Commons in November. “Over the last year, our forces were losing 300 more full-time personnel than were joining, every month.”
In April 2024, the army fell below its recruitment target for the first time since it was set, with personnel numbers at the lowest level since the Napoleonic wars, at around 73,000 troops. All three branches of the UK armed forces are currently sitting below their size targets.
Meanwhile, MoD figures published in June 2024 revealed that more than 15,000 full-time personnel quit the armed forces in the 12 months previous, while just over 11,000 signed up.
However, in October 2024, the number of people joining increased by 18.9 per cent since September 2023, and the number of those leaving had decreased by 7.3 per cent.
Announcing the AFRS last month, armed forces minister Luke Pollard said the government was taking “decisive action to address recruitment and retention challenges” and the programme would help it attract top talent.
“For too long, we have seen keen and capable prospective recruits failed by an outdated system, full of delays and inefficiencies.”
He added: “By making it quicker and easier for people to sign up to serve, while maintaining the very highest standards, we will strengthen our armed forces and make the UK more secure.
“Our ambition is for those who apply to serve our country to receive a conditional answer within 10 days and a training start date within 30 days. As global threats increase, we are making the changes necessary to get the brightest and best into Britain’s military.”
The government also plans to hand retention bonuses to thousands of staff in a bid to tackle the long-term decline in numbers.
The scramble to boost recruitment comes amid increasing global instability, and mounting pressure from US president Donald Trump to increase Britain’s defence capabilities.
Last month, Sir Keir Starmer bowed to pressure from Mr Trump to boost defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by slashing foreign aid, just 24 hours before he flew to Washington DC.
The PM told a press conference in Downing Street that the decision had been “three years in the making” since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, describing his decision as “a generational moment”.
The MoD has been contacted for comment.
