The government says it is making progress in tackling the armed forces’ long-standing recruitment and retention challenges, though peers have raised fresh concerns about how psychological pressures and digital-era warfare may affect future enlistment.
Speaking in the House of Lords on Monday, Defence Minister Lord Coaker reported significant improvements since the government initiated reforms in July 2024, including faster medical checks and structural changes to the Army’s recruitment system.
“Year on year inflow is up 19 percent and outflow is down 7 percent,” Coaker said. “The Navy’s yearly recruiting target has been exceeded, the RAF’s applications are up 34 percent compared to early 2024, and the Army has seen a seven-year high in applications.”
The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham welcomed the update but asked what assessment had been made of the psychological impact of modern warfare, including drone operations and cyber conflict, on potential recruits—particularly younger people with higher reported mental health needs.
Coaker acknowledged the challenge. “Mental health and the psychological impacts of modern warfare are things that any recruiting process will have to take account of,” he said. He also highlighted a new cyber-specific direct entry route to better reflect the changing nature of the battlefield and appeal to non-traditional applicants.
Labour peer and former First Sea Lord, Lord West of Spithead, argued that the fundamentals of military recruitment had been misunderstood for too long. “We have slightly lost sight of why youngsters want to join the military,” he said. “Action, danger, excitement, comradeship, travel and pride” were the enduring motivations, he claimed, not just long-term benefits and pensions.
Lord Coaker agreed. “We ought to speak up and speak out about the Armed Forces,” he said, pointing to the example of the UK’s carrier strike group currently en route to Australia.
“They are young men and women who this country is rightly proud of, and we should use them as examples for our young people.”
The debate also confirmed that Serco has replaced Capita as the Armed Forces’ main recruitment contractor, and that a new single point of entry across the services will be introduced in the coming years.
Good grief. I suspect a little decent discipline, exercise and purose in life might do wonders for the mental health of our youth
One of the contributors to GB News the other morning happened to mention his daughter when they were discussing mental health and the youth these days, he said, his daughter has asked him to text before he calls, because unexpected phone calls cause her Anxiety!!
I’ve been told by a few folks that this is not uncommon these days, all rather worrying signs that large numbers of our kids are terrified of their own shadow.
Good luck with the real world when that protective University bubble pops and you have to work in the real world…
There’s a great book called The Coddling of the American Mind.
Don’t worry about the “American” part, it’s the same over here.
The authors argue that well-intentioned overprotection by parents, educators, and institutions is actually harming children and young adults, making them more anxious, fragile, and less capable of dealing with challenges or conflicting ideas.
You can also search for the title on YouTube—it’s fascinating.
Crap.
What’s crap Graham?
His Daughter may well be an introvert as well
I too suffer from stress and depression, and anxiety
Introverts hate phone calls. Many introverts will actively avoid making phone calls. When they receive phone calls, they’re more likely to let the call go to voicemail than to answer.
They have to psych themselves up to the challenge..
And at the age of 46, and through various decades of technology, I hate having to make phone calls or receive phone calls..
My mobile phone gets ignored if it rings…
Text me and I will chat all day!
It’s not a generational thing!
You are either an introvert or an extrovert, perhaps somewhere in the middle
Yup. Hate making phone calls. Hate receiving them without a text first.
Morning John, that maybe so. I would say that most ingrained behaviours can be delt with by the old fashioned method of ‘ having a word with yourself’ .
I certainly hated public speaking, or dealing with large groups of people, but in the variety jobs I’ve had, I simply had no other choice.
So, im probably also slightly on the introverted side, but you dig in and push through it.
Its incredibly uncomfortable for a while, but you train your brain to deal with it, its simply growing as a person and overcoming challenges, as I’m sure you have discovered yourself in life.
The problem today boils down to ‘why overcome it, if you can medicate it instead’.
Leading to a generation of drug reliance and little to no personal growth.
Simply put, its a failure to launch yourself into life and its complexities.
In my totally unprofessional opinion of course!
God, Boomers just exhaust me. 👍
It is because John our generation were not in communication for most of our day.. most people could simply not be reached.. the modern generations spend their entire lives available to the world..
The simple fact is we have brains designed to spend most of its time sitting and staring at passing insets.. with the occasional search for berries and then for a short period each day the thunting and fully scanned for danger.. being in our amygdala ( it’s our security guard complex) In the modern world people spend their entire time connected to possible danger and input around risk. It essentially drives us around the bend as we spend more and more time in our amygdala… this is a problem because basically your amygdala is a bit of a shit…it does not think, it simply follows templates of behaviour that it pattern matches to from previously developed templates that the hippocampus stores away.. it’s how you train people to react instantly in profoundly stressful and dangerous situations… it’s also how we develop stupid phobias or get unhealthy patterns of behaviour..
Now the issue is this amygdala hippocampus complex does not think it’s not rational and it only has three default modes 1) anxiety ( it’s on guard looking for things that will kill you) 2) depression ( it will try and avoid dangers) 3) anger ( it will attack the danger)…
So essentially we force people into this amygdala hippocampus complex and wonder why they are either irrationally anxious, depressed and hiding from the world or angry and attacking..
The final killer for humanity is our brains don’t actually know the difference between what is real and what is imagined.. the imaged danger is just as damaging as the actual real danger that is happening ( when you watch a horror movie what happens to your bodies stress responce ? )..
We are being cooked by 24 hour news, 24 hour social media and 24 hour access and communication… because our brains are happier when we sit and stare at the grass growing, maybe drinking a beer and chatting to a friend about how lovely the weather is or how good looking that woman is….
Morning Jonathan, thanks for that, but we still have the question of a mollycoddled generation, few have part time jobs, most are ferried to school, they are ‘protected’ from life’s stressors that actually build and form the resilient adult.
Take my grandparents generation that fought in WW1, they went through unimaginable horrors, many came home and just got back on with life, struggling with that horror, but got on with it.
Of course, they were generally a very hard generation anyway, hard manual work, plenty of discipline as kids and as a result self discipline and mental resistance.
A friend of mine who has recently retired from General Practice, told me I would be absolutely horrified if I knew the extent of 12-16 year olds who are on anti depression medications in his old practice.
For whatever reason, we find ourselves here today, the reality is we have the best part of million 18/30 year olds, not working, in training, or indeed education. Many of them on various anti depression, mood altering medications.
What will become of them, or society 30 years from now??
What about there kids?
Bloody glad I won’t be here to watch that particular shit show unravel!
Interestingly it’s the SSRIs which are part of the issue ( anti depressants).
Did you know that depression was not even considered a thing in Japanese society until the drug companies introduced it as a major public health concern in the 1990s.. basically the drug companies have through public health put forward the idea of depression as something that needed to be treated to essentially sell an addictive drug that is profoundly difficult to get off… you add that to a society that created the fundamental building blocks that increases depression and you have the most amazing drug market… the treatment for depression has always been been one of lifestyle.. but we created a lifestyle that essentially destroys mental health and the tried to treat it with drugs that have little real evidence base behind them and cause massive harm… but we need to be clear which generations created that Society.. it was the boomers and generation X… we were in charge we created the society we prescribed the drugs etc.
If there’s one advantage of a piss poor labour market, it’s this. Some good news at last
That question from the clergy…
Not a bad question, some higher-up has already started off badly with the idea that armed drone operator is a good role for the anxious, “nerdy”, detached, gamer, couch-potato types. Someone needs to stop and have a rethink about that before handing the controller with the ability to turn someone into red mist from 500 miles away in full 4k.
Mental health care is poor in the UK & even poorer for the armed forces post conflict. Adding a group to the statistics that may well struggle to even go for a walk to “clear their heads” or have an in-person social group around the to help them get through things is maybe not a great idea.
To be fair to HMG, they are getting this right.
#Day25
I agree, scrapping CRAPITA was a good early call from current government.
What by destroying the economy making it so people feel joining the military is the answer for them ? Let’s be honest if your young u see all the working class jobs going to people on skilled migrant visas and if you are actually skilled u see DEI filling all them jobs British born youth are having a hard time of it at the moment
“DEI” – You can just admit you read too much American news that you import their problems.
So there wasn’t a case of the airforce calling white men useless because they don’t want them no ? And there isn’t a case of babying a woman through RM training giving her massive advantages so she can pass the commando course is there ? No it’s somehow Americas fault lol get a grip will u
Do you spend your life being a whingebag, or is it a relatively new thing?
You think pointing out the fact that pointing out that DEI has a negative effect on our war fighting ability is whinging wow you’re quite special ain’t you ?
It’s a quintessential American crybaby talking point.
I wonder if you are one of those “free thinkers” who just parrots what you’re told.
I wonder if you’re serious or not ? This has absolutely nothing to do with the USA this is our government doing it the only changes a government should make to our forces are changes that make it more lethal if anyone is a crybaby it’s you trying to blame another country over actions taken by our government
Maybe go for a walk and calm down a bit. The DEI panic attack is not good for your health.
I’m perfectly calm u like yourself and you seeing big bad Americans around every corner why not tackle the actual discussion rather than making stupid statements as u clearly think DEI isn’t a problem in the U.K. military tell me how has it make U.K. forces more lethal
You don’t like being disagreed with, do you?
Quick, vibrate in anger some more, it really helps.
Couple of points firstly u don’t know me so have no idea of what I like or dislike 2nd there hasn’t been a single bit of anger from me I don’t know u so why would I get angry with u , but again let’s get on with the actual point explain to me why u think DEI isn’t a problem and how it makes our forces better prepared for our next war
It’s very easy to tell that you don’t like it. It’s why you are quite clearly shaking with rage that someone dared question you.
(Usually, this is something that is resolved when you are in primary school)
But by all means, keep crying over party line.
Wow I’m going to assume u have lived a very sheltered life if u think im raging lol just wow on that , but are u ever going to answer the question or are u going to continue to talk absolute nonsense? It should be easy to defend your position
My position is that you just constantly whinge over American talking points, then cry like a little infant when someone questions you.
So far, you have proven both to be spot on. Reliably so.
So again nobody is crying your just making things up now 2nd it’s not an American problem as the RAF I believe got took to court and was forced to pay compensation and a RM was investigated for shining a light on the problem there are multiple cases of this in the BRITISH military so answer the question do u support this or not try not to answer with some retarded comment about imaginary angry people if I was angry I would tell
Nobody who is calm would sling messages like that around. It’s not a personal failing to be unhappy, but flipping out definitely is.
But by all means, lean into your rhetoric and throw all your toys out of the pram.
Again nobody is angry or throwing toys out and u can’t point a single comment I’ve made that would lead any normal person to believe that u have just latched onto that because u seem to think it bothers me and your argument has no substance again if I was angry I like most normal people would say so when u feel like answering the question go ahead but I’m going to assume I’m going to get another empty reply about apparently me being angry or upset god know why u think u could anger me your nobody to me
Is punctuation illegal where you live?
My argument is sound and you continue to write unreadable essays of barely coherent English.
Amazing what happens when you stop chasing people who will never apply, and open your doors to those who’ve been trying to get in.
I have notice a few more white males in the recruiting army videos in recent weeks . Thank goodness for that. Now they just to to get one step further and get the westerners back in the vids. Be the best and all that. There were some excellent videos in days gone by still perfectly good for today
I’m not surprised some self appointed alpha males on here might question the concern about mental health. The lack of care for mental health after every major conflict has never really been addressed. My father’s and grandfather’s generation were often mentally sick but it was ignored. It’s a real thing… just look at those from the Afghan and Iraq conflicts. Youngsters aren’t coddled, they are exposed to more reality than you and I ever were at their age, and vastly more uncertainty. But you aren’t going to see it if you don’t want to. When it comes to death, in my long experience, it’s the big mouths that cry most and can’t cope.
Indeed. The ‘coddling’ comments above are especially stereotypical.
Serco getting a bonus for every sign up so they’ll just let anyone join.
This is very good news. Recruitment is up considerably across all three services, at long last.
This is primarily because wo major obstacles have been removed.
First is Capita’s slow, weary but very PC admin process, which has lost thousands of keen applicants who just gave up waiting after x months.
Second is that the forces pay rises, housing improvements and the commitment to increasing the defence budget by 60% over the next 10 years, has sent a positive signal to many ex-service parents, who have hitherto.not encouraged their offspring to sign up. Not a surprising stanc3 by the ex-regulars, given the tens of thousands who were kicked out after the Cold War and again from 2010.
It looks like there are enough young people who want to serve to meet the forces’ current needs. When we start to expand numbers, from 2028/9, as indeed we must, it will be interesting to see if recruitment can keep pace.
For now, this is a very welcome improvement over the dismal period from 2010 to 2024.
I would never allow a single family member to fight for London and their designs.
{Not even our Josh and he’s a right nob}
Then you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the average soldiers would fight for. Those that I know have a similar opinion to you – they wouldn’t fight for Starmer, or for Badenoch, or for Farage. But they would fight for their families.
We don’t have families. Our daughters have been gang raped and turned into third world jizz rags and our sons thrown onto the dole.
Families don’t exist.
You might not – I do. That’s sound like a personal problem.
They have removed diversity quotas..