The Ministry of Defence has said that pressures on family life and opportunities outside the military remain the primary reasons personnel leave the armed forces, despite recent improvements in recruitment and retention.
In a written response to Parliament, defence minister Louise Sandher-Jones said there was “no single reason why personnel leave the Armed Forces”, but pointed to findings from the Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey. She said those who chose to exit service most commonly cited “the impact of Service life on family and personal life and opportunities outside the Armed Forces”.
The response followed questions about a decline in the full-time trained strength of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, RAF and Army over the year to 1 October 2025. While overall force levels have stabilised, the department acknowledged that retention challenges persist across all services. Sandher-Jones said the government was “pleased to be reversing the trend of decline”, but added that “we know there is more to do” to address the underlying causes of personnel losses.
She highlighted a package of measures intended to improve both recruitment and retention, including speeding up the process for former personnel who wish to rejoin, delivering what she described as “the largest pay rise in decades” for service members, and removing “100 outdated recruitment policies”.
The minister also pointed to plans to legislate for the UK’s first Armed Forces Commissioner, aimed at improving service life and providing greater independent oversight of conditions faced by personnel.
Is this one of those questionaires where just the two options are given ?
Are you leaving because-
A – Family Life.
B – Civilian Job.
🤔
I or people just saying that instead of poor leadership.
Yep. The standard excuse, so you can leave without the ball ache you get from telling the truth.
Possibly but there is opportunity to call that out on exit, I can’t speak for the Army or Navy but for the RAF there was a team who contacted me to understand my reasoning, offer alternatives if something was a potential cause and try to retain me. Ultimately my reason was not resolved and I left, but I left know that there was other thing offered to try and keep me in.
I walked out of a job interview a couple of weeks ago because of the ‘lessons’ I was required to learn before I even took the interview, {lessons in how lovely Islam is for example}. I didn’t bother and just left without explaining or upsetting anyone.
The last thing you should do nowadays is be honest with your employer, that’ll cripple you if you’re ever going to get another job. Just lie and make it easy on yourself.
I wonder how many meetings they’ve had and how much has been spent on “research” to come up with this amazing answer.
Morale.
‘At the end of the Cold War in 1991 the Army had 155,000 troops in four divisions, with nine armoured and four infantry brigades. In 2025 it had 75,000 troops in two divisions, with two armoured and three infantry brigades. Combat power had shrunk by more than half. And the Army was less ready for war. Ill-prepared not just for a high-intensity war with Russia, but even for a more limited role as part of a potential Ukraine Reassurance Force.’
‘Inadequate leadership by prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and their rotating cast of defence ministers, led to avoidable casualties and strategic defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, increasing the human, financial and reputational costs of both wars. This resulted in declining political, public and media support for putting British troops in harm’s way.’
‘A lethal combination of Treasury hostility to defence spending and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) favouring investment in ships and aircraft continually squeezed the Army’s resources. To live within its budget the Army was forced to cut away the people, weapons, logistics and training that were so essential to military effectiveness.’
‘The decline and fall of the British Army’ Ben Barry 19 Dec 2025
If called upon to deploy to a hot war on Continental Europe against a battle hardened adversary possessing a massed drone arsenal, the British Army will be annihilated in short order.
Morale is the lowest it’s ever been
Troops hate the govt labour and tory and have no desire to fight Russia ever.
Too many fake wars since 1990 to ever fight this one.
Kits crap and old, The Navy and the Army keep getting smaller, those at the top are deluided and out touch with reality. Gun Regts have nothing to do and no kit as we gave it all away, there are no operational tours just the woke Army pretending the Baltics is a tour. and giving out a medal for it!
Every other month some thing is retired/sold off, taken out of service and never replaced. The new kit takes 10 years to get to units then is still not safe to work on, higher up cover up problems and never get held to account. And that nutter Gen Carter ruined the Army all on his own with his crazy light every thing strike ideas.
There is not enough ammo to fight a war. However its ok as after spending likely millions on meetings and focus groups its not any of that, its family life and civi job offers.
Deny there is a problem and then blame some thing else, that is the MOD of today, the truth hurts so just never say it. Make any thing up and blame others when really is years of poor and very weak leadership and under spend that is really to blame
Rant over off to walk me dog
For those who don’t know the Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey (CAS) is conducted every year and has been for decades. Its a very long questionnaire (or was when I was serving). It is for completion by those still serving, not by those who have just left. The CAS is OS – that for 2025 was published on 22nd May. Easy to google it ny entering armed forces continuous attitude survey 2025.
I left by PVR in Sep 2009. The PVR application asks you for your reasons for wanting to leave.
Thus, there is a mountain of data about why serving personnel are content or fed up about certain issues and seperately…why people leave.