Army Policy and Secretariat
Army Headquarters
IDL 24 Blenheim Building
Marlborough Lines
Andover
Hampshire, SP11 8HJ
United Kingdom
Ref: Army/PolSec/WF/M/FOI2024/05155
E-mail
: xxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx Website
: www.army.mod.uk
Charlie Mackintosh
request-1107103-
19 April 2024
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Dear Charlie Mackintosh,
Thank you for your email of 24 March 2024 in which you requested the following
information:
“According to figures released by the Ministry of Defence this year, the British
Army has just above 75,000 regular servicemen and women. I would like to
request the following more specific information:
1. How many fighting-fit regular servicemen and women are there in the
Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery regiments of the British Army? i.e. How
many Officers, NCOs, and men are employed in combat roles in the
infantry, cavalry, and artillery, in a regular capacity? This figure should not
include individuals employed as doctors, chaplains, in logistics, or as
engineers etc. If you could do a breakdown of numbers for each of the
three roles, I would be grateful.
2. How many regular servicemen and women are employed in supporting
combat roles e.g. doctors, chaplains, logistics, engineers, police etc.?
3. How many regular servicemen and women are employed in non-combat
roles e.g. musicians, lawyers, administrators?
4. If you could possibly also provide the relative percentages of regular army
employed in the above three categories, I would be very grateful.”
I am treating your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) 2000. A search for the information has now been completed
within the Ministry of Defence (MOD), and I can confirm that the information in scope
of your request is held and can be found below.
The MOD has interpreted the term ‘fighting-fit’ in relation to Question 1 to mean the
Trade Trained Regular Service Personnel in the Combat Forces. Under Section 16
(Advice and Assistance), I should explain that this definition is reflected in our total
figure in the table. This figure does not include the Untrained Regular Service
Personnel, which may therefore explain the difference with the figure that you provided
in your request.
Table 1. Trade Trained Regular Army Personnel by Arm / Service, as at 1 January 2024.
Proportion of Regular
Arm / Service
Total
Army
Total
69,188
Combat Forces
21,554
31.2%
Household Cavalry/Royal Armoured Corps
4,222
6.1%
Infantry
15,863
22.9%
Army Air Corps
1,469
2.1%
Combat Support Forces
19,765
28.6%
Royal Regiment of Artillery
5,139
7.4%
Corps of Royal Engineers
7,391
10.7%
Royal Corps of Signals
5,545
8.0%
Intelligence Corps
1,690
2.4%
Combat Service Support
19,507
28.2%
The Royal Logistic Corps
9,127
13.2%
Royal Army Medical Corps
2,981
4.3%
Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
7,399
10.7%
Other Services
7,406
10.7%
Royal Army Chaplains’ Department
124
0.2%
Adjutant General’s Corps, Staff & Personnel Support
2,850
4.1%
Adjutant General’s Corps, Royal Military Police
1,200
1.7%
Adjutant General’s Corps, Military Provost Staff
138
0.2%
Adjutant General’s Corps, Educational and Training
306
0.4%
Adjutant General’s Corps, Army Legal Services Branch
95
0.1%
Royal Army Veterinary Corps
356
0.5%
Small Arms School Corps
143
0.2%
Royal Army Dental Corps
160
0.2%
Royal Army Physical Training Corps
450
0.7%
Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps
949
1.4%
Royal Corps of Army Music
635
0.9%
Staff
712
1.0%
Senior Soldier Continuity Posts
244
0.4%
Source: Analysis (Army)
Notes/Caveats to Table 1.
1. The figures are for the Trade Trained Regular Army only and therefore exclude
Gurkhas, Full Time Reserve Service, Mobilised Reserves, Army Reserve and
all other Reserves, but includes those personnel that have transferred from
GURTAM to UKTAP.
2. Figures include personnel regardless of their Medical Deployability Standard.
This includes personnel who are Medically Non-deployable.
3. Figures include both male and female Service Personnel.
4. Figures include both Officers and Other ranks.
5. All Officers of Paid Rank Colonel and above are included in Staff regardless of
late Arm/Service.
6. Other Ranks serving in Senior Soldier Continuity Posts are identified as such,
regardless of late Arm/Service.
7. Figures represent personnel's Arm/Service, regardless of the Unit they are
serving in.
8. Historically, Ground Close Combat (GCC) roles consisted only of male
personnel. In July 2016, the exclusion of females in GCC roles was lifted, and
Household Cavalry/Royal Armoured Corps was opened to females from 1
November 2016, and Infantry from the 25 October 2018 for transfers and 1 April
2019 for new recruits.
If you have any queries regarding the content of this letter, please contact this office
in the first instance. Following this, if you wish to complain about the handling of
your request, or the content of this response, you can request an independent
internal review by contacting the Information Rights Compliance team, Ground Floor,
MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail
xxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xx). Please
note that any request for an internal review should be made within 40 working days
of the date of this response.
If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may raise your complaint
directly to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the
Freedom of Information Act. Please note that the Information Commissioner will not
normally investigate your case until the MOD internal review process has been
completed. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Further details of the role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found
on the Commissioner's website a
t https://ico.org.uk/. Yours sincerely,
Army Policy & Secretariat
