About us

We work for a secure and prosperous United Kingdom with global reach and influence. We will protect our people, territories, values and interests at home and overseas, through strong armed forces and in partnership with allies, to ensure our security, support our national interests and safeguard our prosperity.

Responsibilities and priorities

The Ministry of Defence’s purpose is to protect the nation and help it prosper. From 2023, our priorities are to:

  • protect the UK, its Crown Dependencies, and its Overseas Territories
  • pursue a campaigning approach to counter the threats from state and non-state actors
  • promote our national interests globally
  • secure strategic advantage, achieve greater economic and industrial resilience, and contribute to national prosperity.

The Defence Command Paper 2023 outlines how we will deliver on these priorities.

Who we are

The Ministry of Defence has trained and untrained personnel in the three Services and its civilian workforce including Royal Fleet Auxiliaries, Trading Funds (such as the UK Hydrographic Office) and locally engaged civilians who support our presence overseas.

The UK regular forces comprise full time trained and untrained personnel in the:

Full personnel information can be found in the following publications:

Use of images

You may use images on this website when reporting current news only. See the MOD news licence.

Online security

Online resources for serving and ex-serving defence personnel, their families and friends for safe and responsible use of social media are available in Think before you share online.

Accessibility

For guidance on the accessibility of Ministry of Defence content hosted on gov.uk and contact details for reporting any issues, please read our accessibility statement.

Corporate information

Access our information

Jobs and contracts

Read about the types of information we routinely publish in our Publication scheme. Find out about our commitment to Welsh language scheme. Our Personal information charter explains how we treat your personal information. Read our policy on Social media use.

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