The Ministry of Defence has published its UK Armed Forces Biannual Diversity Statistics for October 2024, showing key trends in gender and ethnic minority representation across the military.
These statistics fulfil the MOD’s obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty, as outlined in the Equality Act 2010, and provide insights into the composition, intake, and outflow of UK Regular Forces and Future Reserves 2020 (FR20) personnel.
Female Representation
As of 1 October 2024, female personnel accounted for 11.9% of the UK Regular Forces, an increase of 0.2 percentage points compared to the previous year. Female representation in the Future Reserves 2020 remains higher, standing at 15.9%, consistent with the previous year.
However, the proportion of females among the total intake into both Regular Forces and FR20 over the 12 months to 30 September 2024 decreased slightly, falling from 12.3% to 11.9%.
Ethnic Minority Representation
The report highlights a continued rise in ethnic minority representation across the Armed Forces. As of October 2024, 11.7% of personnel in the UK Regular Forces were from ethnic minority backgrounds (excluding white minorities), marking a 1.1 percentage point increase from October 2023.
For the Future Reserves 2020, ethnic minority representation stood at 6.6%, a modest increase from the previous year’s 6.2%. Additionally, 16.3% of all new recruits into the combined Regular Forces and FR20 over the 12 months to 30 September 2024 were from ethnic minority backgrounds, a notable increase from 11.7% the previous year.
The statistics underscore the Armed Forces’ ongoing efforts to foster a diverse and inclusive workforce, reflecting the broader UK population. The MOD has framed these improvements as part of its commitment to equality and diversity within the Armed Forces.
Marvelous, we’re now training the invading immigrants into a fighting force, that’s just wonderful! Marked increase of over 5%, Stirling work!
What a stupid comment …
So the grandchild of someone who came here from India 80 years ago shouldn’t be allowed to join??
What a stupid comment,not realising that the diversity quotes are weakening and endangering our forces capabilities all for civilians divisions of diversity….
With such an intense focus on such things,the forces has become only about such things, no longer caring about the dangers of the job but more about if women are offended.
What is dumb,is men being fired to try and skew the percentage of women in statistics …
What is dumb is women being hired over men,for diversity quotas, which is illegal!!!, hiring based just on sex ..just to push diversity statistics up …whilst noone looks at how many females are in each recruitment drive and see that they are still the exact same.
Nothing about your feelings should matter in relation to the military … It’s dumb to assume that your example of that type of person is actually who they are talking about when in reality it is most likely one following religious law therefore ignoring our laws for instance …do not create crime rings of over 1400 victims where the police can do nothing for fears of looking racist …. Which is an exact example of how damaging your diversity standards are actually to society.
What is stupid is that the vast majority of people look at this article and are pre disposed to looking at it as positive ..without questioning the information and how it’s been manipulated …for the fear of being racist or sexist to think any other way
You should’ve seen when I was in …in an office about maintaining the nuclear deterrent …we had big posters brought in that had angry extremist argumentative quotes challenging people about LGBTQ related stuff ….
In training and working alongside on operation women had many concessions based on their sex alone … And to this day have to achieve lower fitness standards than men, despite the dangers of the job not giving a F about what your beliefs or feelings are…
No way is a woman who doesn’t train herself to match the standards of a man going to be able to jump into the compartment and drag me away from a fire if she doesn’t train up to the standards in order to do so …
And look at the amount of articles today ..that makes women and other races the “face” of the military …. Regardless of and shitting on all the white men who are actually doing all of the work!!!!
People who see this as positive are mindless drones …based not on my feelings or beliefs but for the evidence of such with the points I’ve brought up that they didn’t think about or know
Careful,you’ll upset the virtue signallers.
Or just those people who don’t like blatant racism and misogyny….
@Jonathan Yup! Amazing how upset people get about treating people with different reproductive organs or skin colour with a modicum of respect.
I don’t believe the MoD has quotas for recruitment by gender or ethnicity. Certainly not published ones anyway.
Bob, I just missed them on boats, and I was so pleased. I remember the naws when they put them on skimmers. Also hear a lot of stories from a couple of mates still on boats and inboard. … Remember mate, diversity is our strength……
Learn the difference between ethnic minorities and illegal immigrants
That the first post on here is from an idiot racist is a sad reflection of how our society is regressing…
Moronic.
What of people who are not white, who are as British as anyone else, who were born here, and have integrated with wider society?
I’m so proud when I see a person of colour who has it in their heart to represent their country.
These figures won’t be from the illegal immigrant numbers, which is indeed a big problem.
Also, assume Gurkha numbers are excluded from the statistics?
I think some people get a bit confused with:
Being a complete racist vs a genuine concern over the impact of mass migration on the structures of society and the need for open discussion. Unfortunately the complete racists tend to stifle the discussion as much as the group who refuse to have uncomfortable discussions.
Being a complete misogynist vs having a valid discussion on how we can best use 100% of the available workforce to alleviate strategic workforce Pressures…it’s bizarre that just because men are best suited for some forces roles….essentially front line light infantry some people dismissed getting women in the armed forces as somehow woke..it’s just good sense. After all 90% of the entire registered nurse strategic workforce are women as are over 50% of drs… women make better drivers, they are more able to take G forces as pilots and are generally better at task switching than men ( men are more focused and so worse at task switching roles) as well as having better vision and language skills and interpersonal skills including social responsibility and empathy..men are generally stronger, faster and have a higher stress tolerance and pain resistance… there are jobs for both sex’s in the forces using the strengths of both to offset the weaknesses of the other…if your going to be all generalistic about it..the man is more likely to get eaten by the lion while being utterly focused on the elk..the women is more like to miss the elk because she had spotted and was keeping an eye on the lion.
And like I said below: As a species we are not very sexually dimorphic. Even when you can say “Most men do X better” or “Most women do Y better” (both of which are pretty rare, since it’s really hard to control for social factors [eg emotional empathy, women are generally better at that than men…in modern western cultures where male empathy is societal seen as weak and effeminate[) there will always be outliers and exceptions.
The type of immigrants joining the military are not the problem.
Daniel Khalife?
What a horrible and profoundly badly thought out comment, there are many people from different cultures who were born in the UK and many who have naturalised. We are all British citizens and should be proud of and grateful to anyone who who wishes to serve.
And there are more that haven’t ..unless you are negating the whistle blowers and the pedi/grape ring in this country operating under another countries religious law, that affected 1400 victims at least and that the cops could do nothing about in case they were seen as being racist ….
That’s what diversity quotas and ignoring the vast majority of information and counter points against biases brings about
People like you lose all validity when under your intellect such things happen ….
Under his way of thinking …swathes of England wouldn’t be out of bounds to its citizens and military personnel . … And illegal cherry picking(which is illegal) immigrants wouldn’t be encouraged or allowed to enter the waters to get to this country and arrive with no help or rights because they have gone outside of the government and now get out into sex trafficking jobs at best ….
I’ve served on the VBoats carrying nuclear missiles and I have seen the concessions made for others first hand…
Delusional civvilians beliefs overriding military reality … Making all of our jobs less safe.
Not to mention that the more women we hire ..the overall lesser fitness standards the forces have thanks to the lesser fitness requirements of women ….
Yay!!!! Let’s celebrate making our forces weaker!!!! As is evidenced by the forces still giving women an easier time of it and lower fitness scores to achieve!!!!! That sounds super intelligent!!! You’re all super smart because you can’t question under indoctrination!!! …
I look to you all quizzaciously
Jonathan, some cultures are better than others.
Daniel Khalife was born in the UK…he joined the Army and spied for Iran.
They do not integrate and their loyalties always lie with their origins.
George Blake was a British born white man…who worked for the security services and did massive damage to the Uk as a double agent…I assure you that there is a far far great list of British white traitors.
Did you actually read his comment…it was utterly racist and disgusting. So I’m sorry you can try and defend it any way you want. But a racist c%nt is just that. As for women they make up 50% of the population and are as good or better at some jobs than men…yes a front line infanty man is best a strapping young lad…but actually from the point of view of flying a modern combat plane we would probably be better served recruiting women into to role…as physiologically on average they are far better at taking high g forces than men…are you telling me the best people to run the medical services are men ? That a woman cannot drive an vehicle or fly a rotor as well as a man….That’s a load of utter misogyny..I’ve worked with a huge number of very competent women who work in very demanding fields and have saved a lot of lives…many of them served in active combat zones and led significant services…
Whilst the original post was factually incorrect I am afraid you let your self perceived ideological superiority slip by aggressive name calling.
Always better to have a robust disagreement with someone and agree to disagree which is a sign of maturity.
For the record he didn’t use any racist terms but his views on uncontrolled immigration reflects the view of many but I have to say not well. If it was anything more it would have been removed and quite rightly so. Free speech does mean you have to accept being offended from time to time and it is price well worth paying.
Sorry I’m going to call out a racist, I have no issue having a debate..but I will call out what is blatant racism. He in no way made a comment about uncontrolled immigration.
The article was about the number of BAME individuals in the armed forces..not the number of illegal immigrants in the armed forces….therefore his comment “great we are training the invading immigrants into a fighting force” about BAME numbers was profoundly racist..supporting utterly racist individuals to make completely out of context racist comments utterly destroys the ability to have reasonable debates as much as the “ cannot be offended brigade”…for information Im happy to have a discussion on the pros cons and drivers of immigration..I will not stand by and say nothing when something needs to be called out for what it is, if the person wishes to have a debate I will..but this individual made a comment and then did not have the courage or respect to answer the challenges…others like yourself did that..I therefore informed you and others what I though of his comments and him.
I would say that yes he has the freedom of expression and I also have the freedom of expression to tell him what I think of his views..but we have never had complete free speech for a very good reason..we have alway kept a lid on speech when we feel it’s destructive to society..always it’s part of our national fabric, we have the negative right of freedom of expression, within the limitions of the law.
The only thing I’ll add is that people confuse “On average a cis man is going to be stronger than a cis woman” with “All men are stronger than all women.” While you can say that more men will be physically robust enough to be infantry soldiers, that doesn’t mean the same thing as “no women are physically robust enough to be infantry soldiers.” Hence the position should be open to them.
@Sjb The fact you calling a racist a c*nt is worse than being a racist speaks volumes….
You’re all we need. This is for people who think defence, not race.
On the contrary they’re not illegal immigrants they’re volunteers from across the commonwealth
We were grateful for hundreds of thousands of troops from the empire who fought in both world wars. Just remember the royal family itself is descended from migrants!
What an absolute moronic comment.
How is an 18 year old black or Indian (ethnically) 3rd-generation British kid joining up, any less British than a white 18 year old?
Anyone, British or Commonwealth citizen, who wants to join our armed forces and is willing to fight for our country, is fine with me doing so.
I’d go a step further and offer a British passport to any Commonwealth citizen or Gurkha who joins up for 5 years or more.
It would be interesting to see the raw numbers. Are the numbers actually going up or is it people leaving conflating the numbers. A percentage of not much is still not much of the actual numbers are low. Additionally, with some of the recruiting stories of late outlying the MOD “priorities” are the numbers going up due to discrimination or are more minorities wanting to serve?
Absolutely. It would be good to see the numbers who apply to join as opposed to those that actually are accepted for all ethnic/gender groups.
Hate this type of ethnic/gender target numbers missions rather than figures based on absolute merit.
A higher percentage of the UK population is now BAME than years ago, especially among the age groups who are eligible to join the armed forces, it’s not really a surprise that translates to the armed forces having a higher percentage of BAMEs.
This is due to both immigration and Britons typically having fewer children, which has been the trend for the past few decades. That’s why we have an aging population. Needless to say, if Britons don’t have as many children, fewer will grow up to join the military..
If you serve a minimum period, you should get automatic citizenship in my eyes. In doing that, they would have contributed more to the country than someone who has lived on benefits their entire life.
Completely agree.
Daniel Khalife was an ethnically Iranian 3rd-generation “British” kid.
He betrayed this country.
There is also Gurkhas fighting for Russia in Ukraine by the way.
As are Ben Stimson and Aiden Minnis both white brits.
D.E.I or as I call it, anti white man racism. When you exclude men, namely white men from applying for a job, it’s racism. Anyway I would never fight for a Marxist regime.
Equality is often interpreted as oppression by people who now have to treat others as equals.
Are you British? Your politics sound completely American. Firstly, “DEI” is not a thing in Britain, “positive discrimination” is not legal in the UK like it is in the USA. Don’t confuse “positive discrimination” for schemes that encourage more people from a group perceived to be underrepresented to apply for something.
For example, an employer is looking for 15 plumbing apprentices, the vast majority of applicants are white boys/men so he takes part in a scheme to encourage more women and BAMEs to apply. IF he’s hiring BAMEs or women who are less qualified than the white male applicants on the basis of their gender/ethnicity, then it isn’t legal. IF he’s got an ad saying “if you’re a white bloke, don’t bother” it’s not legal. If you have proof this is happening in either the public or private sector (and I mean real proof, not conjecture/hearsay), you can take legal action.
Secondly, Britain does not and has never had a “Marxist regime.” Kier Starmer’s Labour is bog standard centre-left neoliberal. It says more about your own political leanings and Overton Window than it does theirs if you think they’re “Marxists.” It’s often extremists themselves who falsely accuse centrists of being extremists. I say the exact same thing to those on the left who think Tories or anyone who believes in reducing immigration is “Fascist.”
Sadly, I can tell you that through public sector procurement I have personally witnessed the ‘encouragement’ businesses both PLC and private are put under to improve the diversity of their workforce. Local managers are then via personal incentive plans pressured to improve the diversity of their teams, which I have also witnessed. I am a senior team member of a business, white, straight, male and would like to blow the lid on these warped policies but I want to keep my job.
I have 3 young granddaughters and many of my sons friends are mixed raced, which I personally coached football for many years and I treated them as I would any other. If you don’t think the Equality act has been weaponised by some you are naive at best and like many on here who like to believe its positive intentions have not been corrupted by some such as Stonewall for their own ends.
Don’t believe me still then go and remind yourself of what a high ranking male officer of the RAF was doing up until at least 2023 until a less senior female member of the RAF spilled the beans.
This is all very Orwellian and I am afraid Marxist in nature with any persons questioning these policies either removed, re-educated or called out as rascist, homophobic, mysognistic and at best a dinosaur. I fear for the type of world my grandkids are going to grow up in because basic norms are being turned on there head with many of our leaders including Starmer, Lammy and Reeves unable to define what a woman actually is.
The ultimate minority is the individual.
Will our special relationship with our American friends allow our DEI woke hires to fight and die in one of their forever wars ? 🏳️🌈
❤️☮️
The thousands of war graves of soldiers from across the empire shows having non white troops isn’t some new DEI (which is an Americanism) woke thing
I’m afraid SD that DEI woke Americanism are alive and well over here for the foreseeable future as witnessed by the PM and Labour cabinet not knowing what a woman is.
As for our friends from the commonwealth may they RIP.
Hate never conquers hate only love can conquer hate. ♾️❤️☮️
How’s your special relationship with your beloved Lord Putin going?
You again !!! Zelensky and Pelosi’s love child 😁
War is over if you want it. ♾️❤️☮️
Sad that Farouk is not posting on UKDJ these days. He was and fair and knowledgeable poster. Anyone know if he’s on other blogs?
Agree, like some of the older posters he has been “disappeared”. Someone’s scared of lawyers I guess.
Why lawyers?
Agree, I enjoyed his posts and found them sensible, well written, and informed.
His posts were superb.
He was. A number of “old hands” seem to have drifted since the format change. Wonder why.
An increase of .2%!!!!!!!!!!!! One fifth of one whole percent!!!! Wow!!!! We have no tanks. We have not artillery! But at least we are winning the war against sexism!!! Winning by an extra .2% !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOO HOOOOO!!!! That will have them there Ruskies quaking.
Good grief UKDJ.
Well said Stephanie.
I joined on lightweights and shirts GS and crap waterproofs. I left on 95 with the Britax boot. I was troop testing on a really good boot, I think it might be something like Hanwag (?), but the cheaper Britax was eventually issued. My soldier 95 was a big improvement on my eighties kit. PLCE was a huge improvement on 58 pattern. Soldier 95 Gore-tex was a different level of quality to the crisp packet waterproofs I did my basic in. I’m glad current soldiers are getting kit which might actually fit them. The old boots Combat High were a disgrace. We all bought our own. My daughter, then 3, thought my soldier 95 kit was army pajamas as it was such a relaxed fit. Fit where it touches was good enough, but the blokes did all look a bit baggy.
Awesome. When war comes our diversity figures will win it for us. They’re going to f’ing have to since the figures for everything else show we’ll get our arse handed to us.
I don’t see the issue as long as there’s no discrimination involved.
Surely attracting recruits from backgrounds that are less likely to consider the armed forces means a wider pool of people to choose from.
And others of the same background or ethnicity, seeing others like them joining up and making good careers, is likely to attract more people – which is only a good thing.
I don’t care who they recruit as long as they can do the job. I don’t see diversity stats as being the be all and end all, just a distraction from what matters more, they seem to be prioritised above more important things.
The use of diversity statistics are essentially just to see if you are maximising your recruitment opportunities across the whole potential workforce….if you have recruitment issues you need to do this.
THIS!
Good, the more talent that can be attracted into the armed forces, and not be put off because some oiks
have decided that being dreadfully racist, sexist, homophobic (PC talk for being disgusting and nasty) is just ‘a bit of banter’, the better. And no I don’t believe in lowering standards or having quotas
Be interesting to know what was the percentage of “recruits”, who are either foreign / commonwealth citizens and also what percentage are from parents who were not born in the UK.
This would provide a good indication of how many overseas recruits we are still bringing into this country because they are “perhaps” looking to be granted British Citizenship and on the second metric how many 2nd generation immigrants feel service within the military is part of their “patriotic” duty as UK citizens.
No need for details of the ethnicity/ country of origin/ gender or sexual orientation, but simply detail foreign nationals or 2nd generation.
Worth noting that A) Commonwealth applications are currently paused by the armed forces because they are oversubscribed. B) If you want to join the army and you aren’t from a Commonwealth country you need to have a UK passport before you can sign on.
Employing Commonwealth citizens to make up the numbers of the UK Armed Forces (and other sectors of employment such as the NHS and care homes for the elderly) is neo-colonialism: taking another country’s resources for our benefit and their detriment. At least in the days of the British Empire we were one large entity, which was partly protected by British servicemen and women serving within it against neighbouring enemies.
A Commonwealth citizen has to serve for five years in order to gain UK citizenship: the same as a foreigner serving in La Légion Étrangère has to in order to become a Frenchman. Maybe that’s the way ahead for the British Army: become a giant foreign legion.
I remember an visiting army medic sergeant who ran a pre-Iraq combat medic course for our unit telling me that “The Army’s going to be one of those jobs white people don’t want to do anymore” after I mentioned to him that I had recently seen the Army rugby team training at Tidworth, and they were all Fijians….probably why they had recently trashed the RAF team in an inter-services match of that time.
Twenty years down the line, I see that he was right, but not quite….British people of any ethnicity don’t want to join the Army full stop.
It’s sad that these statistics are one of the priorities the top brass and government have, everyone joins with a name and number that’s the only thing that should count.
Why shouldn’t the Armed Forces track where their recruiting is at a deficit?
Are we making comments about why there are no male staff in the NHS? …. Ask yourself why not …and then ask yourself if your comment is as aware and non biased as you think it is
Or 80% of teachers female? We then wonder why many boys get their male-role models and attitudes from the internet. Tech companies are not the only ones culpable for these problems but to suggest we need more more men to do anything would not suit the current narrative.
Unfortunately equality in the U.K. is anything but and sadly many believe the utter nonsense they are told because they are too lazy to do some proper research.
Really? That’s interesting, I guess all the male staff I’ve worked with when I’ve worked alongside the NHS where just hallucinations then?
I think you’ll also find that the NHS tracks the percentages of how many staff are AFAB or AMAB.
The split in the NHS is pretty much the same as teaching with 80% of the staff being female so it is no coincidence that we don’t hear much about the gender imbalance in either of these state run sectors.
Personally it is the best person for the job and some sectors are going have a majority of one gender for very valid reasons but any discussion on these matters have been taken over by equality zealots who have an agenda that is not helpful at all.
I feel like Jonathan has said everything I need to say here.
Basically “The NHS spending a lot of time trying to recruit more men” isn’t rage bait enough. Cheers for proving the point.
Yes I assure you we do all all the time..it’s profoundly frustrating and the nursing profession spends a lot of time trying to recruit more men..because it’s around 200,000 down on numbers even with mass importing of nurses and only 10% of British nurses are men..if we could bring that figure up to 50% then this country would not have a nursing shortage, and not have to import 200,000 immigrant nurses or have huge vacancies that are paralysing the NHS so we look at it every year and think of ways we can try and get British men to train in a profession that gives them a lifetime career with job security and a £30,000-35,000 a year salary… unfortunately changing cultural bias/bigotry in that nursing is women’s work is problematic at best.
So ..let’s showcase how Misandrist this is and how misogynist this would be if an article was made the other way around.
Let’s ignore the illegal practices done to make this happen as they’ve gaslighted themselves otherwise
And let’s ignore the fact that by doing so we weaken at least the fitness levels,therefore eliteness and therefore the operational safety, of all platforms involved by hiring people we give earlier tests to ..because they are deemed as weaker.
Yay!!! We have more people in the forces that couldn’t drag me away from a fire to save me.
Yayyy! We have more people in the forces who are given countless concessions compared to men so that when it comes to a real emergency ..they haven’t fully ever faced the prospect of having noone holding their hands and have to draw on their own reserves of will to get it done.
Yay! We have the female perspective in our forces!!! Now we can validate nonsense that slowly weakens and destroys the structure we have in place….yay
Yay! Thanks to diversity we have angry trans people who thanks to hate speech laws putting their power far above everyone elses they can claim hate crime for anything and dominate under law to send people to jail for no reason.example so you hear evidence from someone who’s had to deal with all of your beliefs first hand and it’s why I left the joke of the forces. I once asked a trans admin po for help with validating leave forms …and it(I don’t want to assume their gender in case I get shot under firing squad by the same people who preach change compassion and love) started being elitist over me not knowing every aspect of their admin job … I pointed out that I only know aspects of admin up to what I am privvy to in standard orders.. but it kept getting more and more agitated and aggressive. I was apologetic and I said ” okay then, as can’t help here and I’ve done something wrong on my end, let’s just stop the process and I’ll bear the consequences, they proceeded to still be upset “saying that that wasnt the point” being very aggressive and abusive.And I made sure i was polite and good to it, calling it Its rank a good amount to infer respect of the rank …
Got pulled aside a week later and it had made a complaint about me based on it’s trans belief…. Nothing I had done or said had even approached anything to do with that ..it was all inside that evil persons twisted mind (that you all accommodate btw granting concessions that we don’t have which makes a negative impact)
I was dumbfounded ….and I asked if it was making it an actual thing …and he said yes, I then said okay then ..well I want to put in a report myself …. Sexism and issues with men and straight people … I was advised not to
I wonder why? Because it’s okay for one group to perceive/invent hate and make an action on it …over another group actually defending themselves against sexist hate …..
That is the reality of what you’ve all done … And you are all more damaging and negative that you’ll ever comprehend.
If you want to know who’s in charge ..look to who you can’t question …..and don’t even get me started on how much straight and white and male hate the whole country takes part in without introspection or repercussions ..hypocrites the lot of you
Straight white men are the backbone of the military forces. Your quotas and ideals of change would mean jack poop if men decided to up and leave, leaving women to stand up …
Whilst men are known to be part of the forces and there are events giving respect to all fallen ….men are not nearly as venerated as the women who join up, when we don’t the vastness of the job ..women will get validation when they have to pass the same tests as us and get closer to the 50/50 representation ….they will also have my respect when they are treated as drones, with no way out of conscription … No more playing as men …but facing the negatives we had as well …..
This isn’t anti women btw m..all of you women join up ..and don’t accept anything less of yourselves than passing the same fitness tests as men!
You have women lifting heavier weights than me, able to eat more food than me, run marathons better than me ..stop saying you are as tough as me and show it …stop allowing society to put you into princess boxes when applying for a dangerous job …don’t allow concessions!
Any woman who does is my equal … And ..I’m kinda important 😏
Only way this article is positive ..is if the women joing up are to the same standards as men and are hired fairly and men are not fired illegally