A written parliamentary question has revealed the number of senior officers currently serving across the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
The figures, released on 7 November 2025 in response to a question by Conservative MP Neil O’Brien, show that as of 1 July 2025 there were 211 General Officers in the Army, 134 Admirals and Flag Officers in the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and 126 Air Officers of Air Rank in the Royal Air Force.
The Ministry of Defence provided the following breakdown:
| Service | Number of senior officers (OF-6 to OF-10) |
|---|---|
| Royal Navy / Royal Marines | 134 |
| British Army | 211 |
| Royal Air Force | 126 |
The question, submitted to the Ministry of Defence on 29 October, also asked for the number of commanding officers of Royal Navy submarines and Royal Air Force frontline squadron commanders. Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Defence Louise Sandher-Jones provided the response, citing operational security as a reason for withholding those figures.
“The Ministry of Defence does not routinely disclose the trained strength of individual branches or specialisations as to do so could, or would be likely to, prejudice the security of the Armed Forces,” she said. “For this reason, I am withholding the answer to parts D and E of this question.”
This is a rare official snapshot of the UK’s senior command structure.
Although the titles of general, admiral and air marshal often evoke images of battlefield or fleet command, the majority of these senior officers serve in administrative, strategic or technical roles rather than direct command. This distribution is typical of modern armed forces, where senior ranks oversee procurement, training, capability development and coordination with NATO and allied partners.
That’s 3 Flag Officers for every warship, 1 Brigadier or above for every 340 soldiers & nearly as many Air Officers as fast jets.
More Generals than tanks
More Admirals than ships
More Air Officers than combat aircraft.
Total joke.
You know the USN also has more admirals than ships, right? This isn’t an abnormal proportion.
You know the USN actually has a Navy?
No, you’re incorrect.
The USN doesn’t have a navy, it is a navy. Those are two different things. Duh.
Stupid comments get stupid replies, now bore off, troll.
The USN as 216 flag officers and 400 ships.
I apologise, I made a mistake in what I was trying to convey.
The USN does indeed have about 200 admirals of various types. It operates about 400 ships.
The RN has about 35 actual admirals to its 65 ships.
My intention was to state that the ratios between the two were not dissimilar when considering actual admirals.
Unfortunately, my wording was incorrect and changed the meaning of the comment entirely.
quite agree with you, they need culling.
We’ve had more commanders than ships and more admirals than senior commands requiring them, since at least the 18th century. It is in the nature of the enterprise.
I think this article needs a little context. We need to understand more about the roles of these people as clearly there are positions which need to be filled by a senior officer as junior officers would simply get pushed around and the whole purpose of the role would be undermined.
You mean jobs for the chaps 🤔
More VSO’s than ships , tanks or planes
Despite the context setting or explanation in the article, it seems some still think that there is only a need for senior officers in command slots. In the army to take an example, we have about the right number of senior officers in command posts and in staff roles in the Field Army, in DE&S and Arms directorates and in ‘defence diplomacy posts’. Arguably there might be a few too many in the ‘MoD Head Office’. I doubt you could shave more than 5% at most.
There are a lot of rainbow posts across the serviced and that nonsense needs culling OR we create another admin branch with more colours for heterosexual members; we don’t have the money for this pride claptrap.
I would say we seem to have a lot more Admirals, Generals and Air Chief Marshalls on here than all of NATO combined.
(look, It’s not my fault, you lot started it)