The Ministry of Defence will launch a year-long military experience scheme in 2026, offering paid placements for 18 to 25 year olds across the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
Around 150 places will open in early 2026 as a pilot, with ministers aiming to expand the intake to more than 1,000 if demand supports it. Participants will receive a year of training and service without a commitment to continue beyond the programme.
According to the announcement, the Armed Forces Foundation Scheme is intended to give applicants a route into defence careers or to build transferable skills for civilian employment. It will include basic military training, time at sea for naval placements and trade-focused experience such as logistics, engineering or supply chain work.
The government says the initiative is part of a wider effort to rebuild connections between the public and the armed forces after years of declining engagement. It also aligns with the Strategic Defence Review’s call for a broader “whole of society” contribution to national resilience.
Defence Secretary John Healey said: “This gap year scheme will give Britain’s young people a taste of the incredible skills and training on offer across the Army, Royal Navy and RAF. It’s part of our determination to reconnect society with our forces, and drive a whole of society approach to our nation’s defence.”
Minister for Veterans and People Louise Sandher-Jones said the programme is designed to deliver practical skills that are relevant beyond military life. “This scheme will provide a fantastic opportunity for school leavers and young adults to develop their potential, learn new skills, and contribute to our nation’s security,” she said.
The UK scheme is modelled on the Australian Defence Force’s ADF Gap Year, which has operated for more than a decade and was cited in the UK Strategic Defence Review. The MOD has not confirmed long-term funding levels or the evaluation criteria that will determine expansion beyond the first year.
Recruitment for the first cohort is expected to begin in the spring.
The Australian GAP years model results in roughly 50 per cent of recruits joining up afterwards.Not massive numbers but better then nothing
It is a cheap pre-screening process.
Firstly, you get to check the recruit is really interested after exposing them to some of the basics.
Second, you have rechecked them medically.
So a cadets for adults with possible trade qualifications basically? Can’t hurt, though the numbers seem a bit low to really have much of an impact.
Looks that way.
It will be a pilot scheme. As it is there is no money.
Historically there was a lot of opposition from top brass to these kind of schemes as they were seen as a slippery slope to National Service type schemes.
In the end as long as it’s a voluntary program..it avoids the national service issue.. after all in the 1960s you could still join the navy at 15-16 and spend a year at HMS Ganges..
Surely it’s a ridiculously expensive pre-screening process because they’ll have to do all of the same recruiting process, plus a year or more being paid (but non deployable). The only saving is that they won’t do Phase 2 training… which is a complete nightmare for units.
To be honest I think we need things like this to revive an important part of our nation… it’s link with its armed forces. The end of the Cold War saw this nation essentially pull away from its military.. I would love to see a society that was more in touch with all the core elements that essentially protect our society.. army, navy, airforce, emergency services, civil contingencies/defence, public health, law enforcement etc.
Personally I would have a society in which a person has links and volunteers or acts as a reserve for one of those elements….
I agree with all of that, I just don’t think this scheme can achieve that at the numbers it has set; it’s almost the worst possible scheme for the military to administer.
High enough numbers to impact units who need to babysit, not high enough to significantly improve manning levels.
Here’s what I would do to prepare the Army for war in the next decade if we’re really serious about it:
1: mobilise significant elements of the regular reserve as FTRS Home Service for 12 months to become training teams.
2: Each year conscript / recruit 20,000 18-25 year olds but for 12 months. Put them through a full training package for regular Service. (Eg the full 26 week CIC)
3: each cohort has a 5 year return of service with the Army Reserve (with mandated training not voluntary)
4: at the conclusion of training, recruits can opt to remain in regular service with the normal 4 year initial engagement OR go reserve.
That would build a significant and fully trained reserve, minimise impact on the regular Army and build a significant connection with society.
Admittedly I haven’t fully thought through implications on logistics, onward career progression etc
I think that is potentially good, but beyond what can be delivered at that pace, or sustained from current resources. It takes at least some time to build (unfortunately, but it does).
Total recruitment to UK Armed Forces is around 14k per annum.
Yes, but….
Anything is possible in an emergency.
In 2020 I led the team that delivered the workforce design and strategy for COVID vaccination. With a 3 month planning window the NHS deployed 125,000 staff on day one of which 80,000 were entirely new to the NHS.
‘Peacetime’ rules and policies were waved, timelines accelerated , training prioritised etc etc.
The output is very different, but it highlights what is possible when there is political and organisational will.
And to highlight that my planning team of 6 included three former Army officers including me.
Well it says a year(combined), not recruiting plus a year+.. 3 and half months basic followed by 8 and half months Civil Support.. 😁
Is it cheep? If you put them through training it won’t be.
If we are turning away recruits in their droves due to nonsense medical issues then why do we need such a scheme.
its so HMG are seen as to be actually doing something without spending alot of money!In short,a gimmick!
“Rebuilding connections with the forces”
Stop closing bases then, many areas are bereft of military sites.
And banning kit from York Armed forces Day last year as someone complained isn’t ideal either, is it?
How about bringing back the Royal Tournament in London?
Finally, stop banning white recruits with the “white trash” nonsense.
It seems on the face of it a good idea that might generate some interest, but needs to be viewed for what it is, a very minor thing when so much is against the military.
In years gone by we had R troop or Recruitment Troop who would go around the schools talking to the kids explaining what the forces did they would do demos in and around the towns and city’s.
There is no interaction between the military and the schools any more all the kids see of the forces on the internet and TV is just how bad they get treated from derelict accommodation to being abandoned in the streets once you leave the forces and with Capita and Serco running the recruitment they are looking at a 18 month (at least) gape from wishing to join to actually getting in the gate so it is no wonder there is a recruitment crisis. The government are just coming up with gimmicks so that they can say they are “trying to fix the Problem” The best way is to let the force recruit directly and get rid of all the middle men who are only there to bleed the system dry.
The Armed Forces do visit schools. And the combined cadet force is a very strong recruiting tool. The vast majority of service leavers go on to have successful careers and lives after their time in the Forces. Single living accommodation across our main operating bases is to a good standard and has been for a long time. Its married housing that seems to have been neglected the most over the years.
Yep, a lot of money has been spent on SLA.
I’d read that there’s a demo Troop or such, forget their name, which visits schools. Sounds from Steven’s post they were more common back in the day, maybe one per local Regiment? As opposed to one Troop for the entire nation, if that’s what the scale is.
My son has just left the Army cadets (as he is now 18) he enjoyed every minuet of it but they have a vastly reduced budget and so have curtailed there adventure training and range days so (in his words) all they do is drill, navigation and 1st aide training which is OK but after you have been in for more than a year it becomes rather routine to keep doing the same things and so the turn over of the A/C is very high. Even the Air cadets who use to have access to a small glider force in the area have stopped that as it has become too expensive. As far as access to schools there are some cases were the armed forces have visited schools but in a lot of areas of the UK the schools activly forbid any interaction with the armed forces.
And yes the accommodation has improved but that is not what is portrayed on the internet and TV and as 99% of teenagers get there information from the internet these days, it is what is perceived rather than what is the troth that counts.
And again, I would agree that the vast majority of service leavers go on to have good successful lives but it is what is perceived on the internet that the youth of today is plugged into 24/7 and very oftern the troth has been demoted to a far off 2nd place.
Good comments.
I’ve never been in cadets or similar (I did community service / Duke of Edinburgh), but I know the civilian sergeant of the our branch of RAF cadets.
The experience has to add value.
Completely agree.. there should be navy days and open ship days, fleet reviews, parades.. personally I also think there needs to be a pressure for everyone to volunteer for something.. if we have a peer war and it’s a whole society event.. why are we not building our civil defence volunteers, our home guard units, our volunteers fire brigades, volunteers police and law enforcement, volunteers medics and making sure we keep retired nurses and drs on an emergency register.. this country is abysmal at harnessing its civil resources.
As an example if you retire from the NHS within a few years you loss your registration as a nurse and decades of clinical experience are lost.. for a few pounds we could create a voluntary civil defence corps out of all the retired healthcare professionals.. keep them on an inactive register, give them annual updates.. most would happily volunteer for a few days a month in the NHS.. then when the shit hits the fan you have a civil defence healthcare corps of tens of thousands of older but useful clinicians… you could do the same with Police, firefighters etc..yes these guys in their 50s and 60s are not going to give you the 50-60 hour weeks they did in their prime.. but few 100,000 experienced 50 and 60 years olds, added to few hundred thousand young volunteers is a good start to keeping a nation ticking when the shit hits..
Same with every aspect of defending the nation.. all those 50-60 year old ex servicemen and ex law enforcement and young volunteers are what you may need if Russia and China goes full grey warfare and starts using subversion, sabotage and drones to attack infrastructure.. because Russia and China would pay the disenfranchised or idiots to say firebomb a substation….
In your previous elevated position, did you suggest any of that higher up the food chain?
Civil defence, I’ve studied our Cold War posture extensively and what we threw away from 91 on, from the ROC, to the RSGs, the Green Goddesses, the Stockplies, but I’m not up to speed on other areas.
I think HMG are utter charlatans, as you know, only interested in their own skins. So I’m not surprised nothing is openly happening.
I hope MoD have dusted off the War Book at least.
I did indeed, one of the reasons my career light flickered and I retired early was I spoke to many truths to my leaders.. covid finished it off really, I had some serious what are you all doing conversations and was joint author of a serious incident review that basically showed the DOH for what it was….basically the people up the food chain buried all my findings anyway so it was a futile gesture… those that rock the boat don’t ever get promoted to a position in which they can change the direction of the boat….
Much like military officers, I read.
As a retired doctor, and in poor health, I’d volunteer for that. I’m happy having done my bit and feel I’ve more than earned my retirement, but a scheme such as this to keep retirees updated and with minimal regular clinical commitment so as to be ready to step up should we be needed would be great. I’m sure that I am not alone in this.
Yep it’s a funny world.. your working at full speed and then that’s it the healthcare system is done with you.. all that knowledge and experience is just left to completely decay.. yes there is a level of things move on, but the fundamentals stay the same, I never understood it myself why we don’t keep our retired healthcare professionals as a resource..
Maybe to help stop expert bias influencing a system, stopping/slowing down the “things move on”.. accidentally not necessarily intentionally, people aren’t that smart.
Not really in things like healthcare..experience matters a lot, because the clinician who has seen decades and thousands of patients is the one that will recognise the odd set of symptoms and keep you alive.. the profound challenge in health is actually recognition of a complex pattern in a patient that indicates one disease process over another.. yes the treatments change over time..but we live and die by that clinician recognising a pattern they have seen or studied before… we call it clinical intuition but it’s not intuition, is decade after decade of seeing thousands and thousands of patients.. the more experienced the clinician the better that intuition works.
150 is a ridiculously small number. Even if the scheme is eventually expanded to 1000 a year, that is still only just over 0.01% of the UK’s population of 8.3 million between ages 18 and 25. In order to restabilise a connection between the military and civilians, even 50,000 p.a. seems low. That’s roughly the crowd at a large football stadium, or one month of illegal immigrants and asylum claims.
Great news, this will at least double our Army.
Load’s of Russian bots/Sympathisers out in force on Facebook about this subject. Just go to show the effort that Russia is going to
We have personnel shortages across all the Armed Forces – so where do we find instructors for this trial. Quality accommodation is limited – so where will they live. Will these personnel take priority over Reserve Forces. In my opinion, the Regular and Reserve deserve all the best postings – so where will this trial get posted. I wonder if this scheme will be targeted by Reserve Forces – and if so, will these Reservists be accepted ahead of direct entrants ? Just a few thoughts before Starmer tries to sell this as the best idea this year.
Good postings are very much in the eye of the beholder, but if they’re doing a year, depending on what the training looks like they won’t be eligible for a lot of postings, so I wouldn’t worry about that too much. Most likely they’ll operate similar to the old “Gap year commissions” where you wear a 1 pip rank and shadow for a few months before returning to civilian life (I suppose enlisted would be Gap Year privates, which seems like a miserable prospect).