Recruitment and retention in the armed forces appear to have turned a corner after years of difficulty, the Public Accounts Committee has found, though it cautioned that the Ministry of Defence cannot say whether its own efforts are responsible or whether the improvement will last, the UK Defence Journal understands.
In its report on the department’s 2024-25 accounts, the committee said the latest public figures, for the year to October 2025, “point to a corner being turned, with the number of people joining the Armed Forces exceeding the number leaving”, a reversal after many difficult years for both recruitment and retention.
Processing of applications had sped up markedly, the average time between someone applying to join and starting basic training fell from 496 days in 2023 to 290 days in 2024. Between August 2025 and March 2026, the committee said, 50,816 applicants received a provisional decision within 10 days of applying and 19,428 were given a date to start training within 30 days. The improvement had been helped by a new electronic system allowing doctors to provide a candidate’s medical records, while initiatives such as a new direct-entry cyber pathway showed the department’s willingness to try new approaches.
On retention, the committee pointed to measures including a new housing strategy, wraparound childcare and improved pay. But it said the department “has not, however, analysed the cause and effect of its initiatives, despite being keen to understand which measures are having what effects”, knowledge that would help it attract people with the skills the armed forces need.
The committee made two recommendations, the department should “develop robust evidence about what factors affect the inflow and outflow of Armed Forces personnel and ensure that it closely monitors these factors”, and should “identify which initiatives to improve recruitment and retention are particularly cost-effective and ensure that these are applied more widely”.
The findings offer a rare note of encouragement in a report otherwise sharply critical of the department, though the committee’s central point is a cautious one: that an improvement whose causes are not understood cannot be relied upon to continue, and that the department needs to learn why the trend has turned if it is to sustain it.
Maybe it,s like when i joined in the 80,s which was a lack of employment aspects in civvy street, because Maggie had closed the mines shut the railways and virtually sold off everything.. so the choice i had was either YTS further education or the forces, Upside with the forces learnt to drive visited other countries and did stuff that well most civvies can only dream of…
Well as a Civilian, I also Learnt to drive, visited other countries and did stuff that I could only dream of.
Whilst also avoiding working down a Pit or on a Railway. 😁
Yes but we did ALL those things as well as visiting exotic countries and meeting interesting people and then kill them at your expense👍
Ahh but I managed to Bore people to death with bad humour….
So there. 😂
Isn’t that what halfwits do.🤣
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Yup.
It’s the Fly paper effect. 😎
Maybe It’s all the Immigrants finding employment 🤔
Maybe its some people actually realise ruzzia is a threat and willing to defend the nation.
Unlikely but possible.
Ha…. Maybe Government should realise that too.
Its so infuriating. The mess of the Armed Forces should be declared as a national emergency.
Whether if people support Ukraine or not, nobody can argue this is the closest to WW3 we’ve been in decades.
Yes but look at the positives…. erm, hang on… erm
Oh i found one!! Ukraine has significantly weakend ruzzia and it will take them several years rebuilding their capabilities thus buying us time.
Thats one…i think!
A positive DIP that details real expansion and growth, you’d think would attract more.
What’s the chances of that?
For decades all we saw in the news was Cuts and Bad Pay and Redundancies and terrible Married Quarters and Inadequate Equipment and doom and gloom and Woke Inclusion and Minority Recruitment quotas and rainbow Toilets and and, well just a whole bunch of negative reasons to want to join.
Reversing all that Is a big ask.
Agreed. The media do highlight and focus on shortcomings to create crisis though mate, so balance is needed.
There will be good quarters, new SLA, good or world class kit.
The woke stuff is everywhere so would young people joining find it unique in a military scenario, not sure.
The RAF no whites crap, certainly. As always, I blame the government, it as was they who closed the offices with serving personnel in them, privatised everything, scrapped most of the RAF training pipeline.
Reversing it? With these Charlatans?
I’ve said it before, Reform are coming as too many millions have seen the light at how utterly incompetent and self serving our political class has become. They might also turn out to be utterly hopeless.
Politicians and the whole corrupt system are obsolete for me.
Well mate, I think we all know its going to be all drones, flying, on land, on water and underwater…
I dont think there will be any expansion in personnel or manned equipment across all three services.
I’m all for drones, but they should be as a bolt on addition, not instead of a properly balanced armed forces.
Cowards always look for the easy way out.
And Drones provide it.
Scum.
From application to start of basic training just under a year! Young people won’t have the patience and mod pays some org to be this incompetent.
New recruits seem to be from China and North Korea lol
The MOD doesn’t know why. Is it down to their own efforts? Dear God, what arrogance. It is down to the fact that youth unemployment has risen by 37 per cent and vacancies have collapsed since Reeves bacame Chancellor.
Exactly. If they don’t recognise that then it is simply ideological denialism.
👍🤔 I wonder if they do?
I think it’s probably young British lads watching Paddy Mayne on the television 😉
Joking aside, it can’t have hurt recruitment….
Nah… Young people are all Phone Zombies, they don’t watch TV, just hours and hours of mind numbingly trashy Tic Tok crap.
If the levels of unemployment amongst young people is as high as the government says then that’s part the answer. When ever unemployment is high among young people the armed forces get plenty of recruits. Combined this with a speeded up entrance process and a few quid sent on tv programs like Warship life in the RN and Top Guns inside the RAF explains the up tick in recruitment. I’ll send my consultancy invoice later.