Official Statistics

Annual location statistics: 1 April 2024

Published 11 July 2024

This statistical release presents figures on the national and international locations of all UK Regular Forces personnel and MOD Civilian personnel as at 1 April 2024, and the intake by Parliamentary Constituency into the UK Regular Forces as at 1 April 2024. The Civilian personnel figures for this year’s addition are also from 1 April 2024.

The strength by location tables present information on the stationed location of all UK Regular service and Civilian personnel by UK Unitary Authority and Local Authority Area, as well as global locations. Data are presented for each Service by Officer/Other Ranks breakdown, and for Civilian personnel by non industrial/industrial breakdown (including Trading Funds and Locally Engaged Civilians).

The Intake tables present information on Intake into the UK Regular Forces by Parliamentary Constituency.

Key Points and Trends

▼132,360	Strength of UK Regular Forces in UK as at 1 April 2024 a decrease of 4,350 compared with 1 April 2023
▼5,700	Strength of UK Regular Forces overseas as at 1 April 2024 a decrease of 110 compared with 1 April 2023
▲55,280	Strength of MOD Civilian personnel in UK as at 1 April 2024 an increase of 990 compared with 1 April 2023
▼4,520	Strength of MOD Civilian personnel located overseas as at 1 April 2024 a decrease of 20 compared with 1 April 20223
▲520	Strength of UK Regular Forces in Germany as at 1 April 2024 an increase of 20 compared with 1 April 2023
▼37,490	UK Region with the highest number of UK Regular Forces is in South East UK as at 1 April 2024 a decrease of 390 compared with 1 April 2023
▲23,210	UK Region with the highest number of MOD Civilian personnel is in South West UK as at 1 April 2024 an increase of 780 compared with 1 April 2023

Responsible Statistician: Tri-Service Head of Branch

Telephone: 020 7807 8896

Email: Analysis-Tri-Hd@mod.gov.uk

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Introduction

This statistical release presents figures on the National and International locations of all UK Regular Forces personnel and MOD Civilian personnel, and the Intake into the UK Regular Forces by Parliamentary Constituency.

The basing of the UK Forces changed when the Strategic Defence and Security Review 2010 (SDSR) outlined a number of recommendations to transform the UK Forces in order to face new threats. These recommendations aimed to restructure the UK Armed Forces and rationalise the Defence estate. This instigated a number of more detailed plans including the Regular Army Basing Plan. A number of modifications were made to the structure and way each of the Services operated, with a focus on creation of a versatile Force. The modifications included the decisions to reconfigure the Army by reducing it from six to five multi-role brigades. The Royal Air Force (RAF) structure was focused around fewer Fast Jet platforms with increasing numbers of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and an improved strategic Air Transport Fleet. Additionally, the British Forces personnel previously based in Germany have been relocated back in the UK. These changes came into effect by 2020 and consequently impacted on basing both overseas and in the UK. Previous versions of this publication reported the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, released in November 2015. Prior to SDSR 2015, this publication reported the planned Future Force 2020, as set out in the SDSR 2010 which planned to reduce the size of the Armed Forces.

To provide a more solid overseas foundation for HM forces, the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy (IR) presented to Parliament by the Prime Minister in 2021, seeks to invest in overseas strategic hubs in Oman, Singapore and Kenya in addition to the facilities and infrastructure in Cyprus, Gibraltar and Germany. The IR also seeks to expand the global network of British Defence Staffs, increasing it by nearly a third. This will see a fairly significant change in the basing of personnel overseas. This will be reported in future publications.

UK Regular Forces

Armed Forces figures are for UK Regular Forces (including both Trained and Untrained personnel), and therefore exclude Gurkhas, Full Time Reserve Service personnel and mobilised reservists. Royal Navy / Royal Marines personnel on sea service are included against the local authority containing the home port of their ship. RAF Other Ranks serving in the South Atlantic are shown against the location containing their home base.

MOD Civilian personnel

Civilian figures are reported as Full Time Equivalent (FTE). FTE is a measure of the size of the workforce taking into account that some people work part-time. Part-time staff are counted according to the number of hours they work per week as a proportion of normal hours for their grade and location.

Other bulletins in this series can be found on the .gov.uk website.

UK Regular Forces by Region

The majority of Service personnel are located in the South East and South West of the UK with 37,490 and 34,920 personnel, respectively. The fewest personnel are located in the North West with 900 personnel. The largest decrease between 1 April 2023 and 1 April 2024 was in South West with a decrease of 1,970 (5.3 per cent). There were no increases in personnel in any region.

A time series of United Kingdom Regular strengths can be found in the accompanying tables.

Strength: the number of UK Regular Forces personnel.

Stationed Location: location in which personnel work; this is not necessarily where personnel live.

Figure 1: Distribution of UK Regular Personnel by Region as at 1 April 2024. UK Boundary Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right [2018].

A heat map of the UK showing that most of the UK Regular Forces are stationed in Southern England.

MOD Civilian Personnel by Region

The majority of MOD Civilians are located in the South West and South East of the UK with 23,210 and 9,980 civilians, respectively. The fewest civilians are located in the North East with 190 civilians. The largest increase in civilians between 1 April 2023 and 1 April 2024 was in the South West with an increase of 780 civilians. The largest decrease between 1 April 2023 and 1 April 2024 was in Wales with a decrease of 130.

A time series of United Kingdom Civilian strengths can be found in the accompanying tables.

Strength: the number of MOD Civilian personnel.

Stationed Location: location in which personnel work; this is not necessarily where personnel live.

Figure 2: Distribution of MOD Civilian Personnel by Region as at 1 April 2024. UK Boundary Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right [2018].

A heat map of the UK showing most of the MOD civilians are stationed in Southern England. The largest concentration of MOD Civilians is in South West England.

Worldwide Strengths

The strength of UK Regular Forces stationed overseas decreased from 5,820 to 5,700 (1.9 per cent) between 1 April 2023 and 1 April 2024. Over the same period, the number of MOD Civilian personnel based overseas decreased from 4,540 to 4,520 (0.5 per cent).

A time series of world wide strengths can be found in the accompanying tables.

Germany Drawdown

SDSR 2010 announced that while the presence of the British military in Germany has played an important role in demonstrating Alliance solidarity, there was no longer any operational requirement for UK forces to be based there, so the aim was to withdraw forces from Germany by 2020.

The Germany drawdown was aimed at seeing half of the approximate 20,000 personnel relocated by 2015 and the remainder by 2020, with the exclusion of approximately 200 Army, RN and RAF personnel who were to remain in Exchange and Liaison posts. This ended UK military basing in Germany. The greatest impact was in the Army, who, as at 1 April 2010, accounted for 98.4 per cent of the personnel stationed in Germany.

Strength Change

The strength declined from 19,100 as at 1 April 2010 to 450 as at 1 April 2021, a decrease of 18,650. The strength has increased to 520 as at 1 April 2024. These are Exchange and Liaison posts.

Intake by Parliamentary Constituency

For the 12 months ending 31 March 2024, for the Royal Navy/Royal Marines, the region with the largest intake was South East with 410 personnel joining, while the Parliamentary Constituency with the largest intake was Gosport with 50 personnel joining.

For the Army in the same period, Officer intake data could not be broken down by Parliamentary Constituency due to lack of recruits’ Postcode information. The Officers intake data has therefore been included in the ’Unknown’ category in the accompanying Excel and ODS tables. For the Army, the region with the largest Other Ranks intake was South East with 970 personnel while the Parliamentary Constituencies with the largest Other Ranks intake were Aldershot and Devizes with 100 personnel joining for each Constituency.

For the RAF, the region with the largest intake was the East Midlands with 190 personnel joining, while the Parliamentary Constituency with the largest number of intake was Sleaford and North Hykeham with 30 personnel joining.

Please note, Parliamentary constituencies refers to constituencies that were in use for the 2019 General Election. For the year ending 31 March 2025, we will look to apply the Parliamentary Constituencies used in the 2024 General Election in next year’s edition of the ALS.

Intake statistics for the previous two financial years is now available after being omitted from the 1 April 2023 ALS.

Unitary and Local Authority Changes

The restructuring of Defence and the Defence Estate is affecting both Regular and Civilian distribution across Unitary and Local Authorities in the UK.

Northern Ireland

There has been a change in structure of Northern Ireland Districts with some Districts grouped together during the 2015-16 financial year.

England

There was a change in Local Authority name in April 2018 from Shepway to Folkestone and Hythe.

In April 2023, structural changes to Local Authorities were made and four new Unitary Authorities were created:

• Cumberland Council was formed from a merger of Allerdale Borough Council, Carlisle City Council and Copeland Borough Council.
• Westmorland and Furness Council was formed from a merger of Barrow Borough Council, Eden District Council, South Lakeland District Council. Both Cumberland Council and Westmorland and Furness Council have replaced Cumbria County Council.
• North Yorkshire Council was formed from a merger of North Yorkshire Council with Craven District Council, Hambleton District Council, Harrogate Borough Council, Scarborough Borough Council, Selby District Council, Richmondshire District Council and Ryedale District Council.
• Somerset Council was formed from a merger of Mendip District Council, Sedgemoor District Council, Somerset West and Taunton Council, and South Somerset District Council.

Trading Fund and Executive Agency

The Trading Fund and Executive Agency total Strength as at 1 April 2024 was 19,440. The MOD Trading Fund and Executive Agencies comprises of Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO), Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA). For further information on MOD Civilian Strengths, please see the MOD Biannual Civilian Personnel Report statistics.

Data Sources and Notes

UK Regular Forces

UK Regular Forces data are sourced from the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system. Location data are based on the stationed location of the individual as recorded in the ‘Assignment Location’ field of the JPA system. The figures are based on Service personnel’s stationed location and not their location of residence - where personnel work isn’t necessarily where they live. Personnel deployed on operations to an area away from their stationed location are shown against their most recent stationed location.

Following a request in Defence Orals in April 2020, data on the Parliamentary Constituency of recruits (intake) is now included in these statistics, beginning with the April 2021 release. Postcode data on recruits joining the Armed Forces is held by the Defence Recruiting System (DRS) for the Army and held by the RITS system for Navy and Air (prior to 2022, it was held by the Defence Recruiting System (DRS)). Data extracts are obtained from DRS or RITS and data validation and processing is performed by the single Services analysis teams (Analysis (Navy), Analysis (Army) and Analysis (Air)). For Air and Navy data, the Parliamentary Constituency is identified from “contact” Postcode as recorded in RITS. However, for Army data, Parliamentary Constituency has been identified using a combination of postcode districts for individuals with partial postcode information and full postcodes for those with complete postcode details, based on the available data held in Army Recruiting and Initial Training Command (ARITC) management information system. This is then linked to the latest ONS geographical lookup tables.

Air and Navy data are produced using full “contact” Postcodes on intake and therefore provides a completely accurate intake by Constituency. Any Constituencies with no personnel recorded may have had no intake over the reported period for these two Services but this is not certain due to unknown values.

However, for the Army data in the financial years 2014/15 to 2021/22 only Postcode District is available and therefore used to derive Constituency. Postcode Districts can overlap Constituencies and therefore we have assigned personnel to the Constituency which has a majority of Postcodes associated with the relevant Postcode District. Two Constituencies, namely Dudley South and Northampton North, have no Postcode Districts where the majority of Postcodes fall in the Constituency, and so have no reported intake. It should be noted that this does not mean that no personnel have been recruited from these Constituencies, rather they cannot be assigned there due to the methodology used.

For the intake into the Army in the financial years 2021/22 to 2023/24, Officers’ Postcode data were unavailable, and so Officer data could not be broken down to Constituency level and have been included in the “Unknown” category. For Other Ranks, Parliamentary Constituency has been derived using a combination of postcode districts for individuals with partial postcode information and full postcodes for those with complete postcode details. All Postcode information has been obtained from ARITC management information system. Where the full Postcode is available, this has been used to assign personnel to a Constituency, otherwise, Constituency has been derived using the Postcode District only, as per the information held in ARITC management information system. Due to this, there could be instances where a Postcode District covers more than one Parliamentary Constituency. Where this occurs, personnel are assigned to the Parliamentary Constituency where the majority of a Postcode District lies.

The methodology is currently under review and is being revised to use full Postcodes for all three services for the next Annual Location Statistics, increasing the quality of the data produced.

MOD Civilians

MOD civilian data are compiled from several sources:

Core MOD personnel

Data for MOD Main Top Level Budgetary Areas (TLB) personnel are derived from the MOD’s MyHR human resources system. Prior to February 2022, data was collected from the MODs Human Resources Management System (HRMS) before it was replaced with MyHR.

Trading Fund and Executive Agencies

The MOD Trading Fund and Executive Agencies are Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO), Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA). At 1 April 2024, Defence Electronics and Components Agency (DECA), has been incorporated into the workforce figures for DE&S.

Data for DE&S and SDA are derived from the MOD’s MyHR human resources system. Data for UKHO and DSTL are derived from the validated human resource systems of the executive agencies.

Locally Engaged Civilians (LEC)

LEC are not civil servants, they are employees are recruited overseas exclusively for employment in support of the UK Armed Forces deployed in a particular overseas theatre, on terms and conditions of service applicable only to that overseas theatre or Administration.

Data for LECs are provided by the main budgetary area of the MOD responsible for them.

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA)

The civilian-manned Royal Fleet Auxiliary delivers worldwide logistical and operational support for the wide range of tasks the Royal Navy undertakes, including warfighting, counter-piracy, humanitarian and disaster relief, and counter-narcotics operations. RFA data are sourced directly from their HR system, ‘Magellan’. Due to using this system Analysis Tri-Service do not have access to the location of these personnel.

For further information on MOD Civilian Personnel, please see the MOD Biannual Civilian Personnel Report statistics.

Further Information

Symbols

Symbol	Description
||	discontinuity in time series
*	not applicable
..	not available
-	zero
~	5 or fewer
p	Provisional
e	Estimate
r	Revised

Rounding

When rounding to the nearest 10, numbers ending in “5” have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent the systematic bias of always rounding up to the nearest 10.

Where rounding has been used, totals and sub-totals have been rounded separately and so may not equal the sums of their rounded parts.

Revisions

Revisions have been made to ‘Trading Funds’ and ‘Non-Industrial’ figures throughout the tables due to a change in methodology. From 1 April 2016, DE&S is now presented as a Trading Fund, where it had previously been included as Non-Industrial. This affected approximately 9,000 employees at 1 April 2016. This change is to ensure consistency in the reporting of MOD Civilian Personnel across Official Statistics.

In tables 3.2a and 3.2b the figures for UK Regulars based in Cumberland from Apr 2012 - Apr 2022 have been revised due to a processing error.

In tables 3.8a and 3.8b the figures for UK Regulars based in Mid-Sussex from Apr 2012 - Apr 2020 have been revised due to a processing error.

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