UK Armed Forces Annual Personnel Report 1 April 2013 The UK Armed Forces Annual Personnel Report contains figures on strength, intake and outflow of UK Regular Forces. It complements the UK Armed Forces Quarterly and Monthly Personnel Reports by providing greater detail about the sex, ethnicity and rank of the Statistical release Armed Forces. It uses data from the Ministry of Defence Joint Personnel Administration System (JPA). Published: 23 May 2013 (Reissued 26 November 2013) The tables present information about the composition of the UK’s Armed Forces in the most recent financial year. Contents Page Contents page 2 Armed Forces Personnel Key Points and Trends Commentary 3 UK Regular Forces: Strength At 1 April 2013: Table 1 UK Regular Forces Rank 6 There were 170,710 UK Regular Forces personnel, Structure of which 29,060 were officers and 141,650 were Table 1a UK Regular Forces Rank other ranks. Structure by Sex and 7 Ethnicity The percentage of women in the UK Regular Forces Table 2 UK Regular Forces Strength was 9.7% in April 2013. 8 by Service and Age Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) personnel Table 3 UK Regular Officers 9 comprised 7.1% of the UK Regular Forces, Strength by Age and Sex continuing a long term gradual increase in the Table 4 UK Regular Other Ranks 9 Strength by Age and sex proportion of BME personnel. Graph 6 Strength by UK Regular 10 56% of Army personnel were aged under 30, Forces by Age and Rank compared with 48% of the Naval Service and 40% UK Regular Forces: Intake and of the RAF. outflow Table 5 UK Regular Forces Intake to 1.3% of UK Regular Forces were under the age of and Outflow by Age 11 18, and 28% were under the age of 25. Category Table 6 UK Regular Forces Intake In the 12 months to 31 March 2013: and Outflow by Age 13 45% of all other ranks intake occurred under the age Category and Sex. of 20; compared with only 3.3% of all officer intake. Table 7 UK Regular Forces Intake by 14 Service and Age 69% of all officer intake comprised personnel aged Table 8 UK Regular Forces Outflow between 20 and 24; compared with only 39% of 15 by Service and Age other ranks intake. Table 9 Intake and Outflow from UK Regular Forces by Service 17 The profile of outflow by age is to some extent at 1 April each year determined by the nature of contracts under which Table 10 NATO Rank Codes and UK personnel serve. In the 12 months to 31 March 19 Service Ranks 2013, common exit ages for officers were 40 and Glossary 20 over. Nearly 60% of all Other Ranks outflow occurred between the ages of 20 and 34; however there is also a peak at age 40 which broadly corresponds with personnel completing a full 22- year career. Further Information: Defence Statistics – Tri Service Tel: 020-780-78896 Email: [email protected] Contents Page: Commentary Key Trends/Observations, Data Sources and Data Issues 3 UK Regular Forces1 Strength Table 1 UK Regular Forces Rank Structure 6 Graph 1 UK Regular Forces Officer Strength by Rank Structure 6 Graph 2 UK Regular Forces Other Ranks Strength by Structure 6 Table 1.a UK Regular Forces Rank Structure by sex and ethnicity 7 Table 2 UK Regular Strengths by Service and Age 8 Graph 3 UK Regular Strengths by Age and Service 8 Graph 4 UK Regular Officers Strengths by Age and Service 8 Graph 5 UK Regular Other Ranks Strengths by Age and Service 8 Table 3 UK Regular Officer strength by age and sex 9 Table 4 UK Regular Other Ranks strength by age and sex 9 Graph 6 Strength of UK Regular Forces by Age and Rank 10 Graph 7 Strength of UK Regular Forces Officers by Age and Rank 10 Graph 8 Strength of UK Regular Forces Other Ranks by Age and Rank 10 Intake to and Outflow from UK Regular Forces Table 5 UK Regular Forces intake and outflow by age 11 Graph 9 Intake and outflow of UK Regular Forces Officers by age 12 Graph 10 Intake and outflow of UK Regular Forces Other Ranks by age 12 Table 6 UK Regular Forces intake and outflow by age and sex 13 Graph 11 Intake and outflow of Male UK Regular Forces 13 Graph 12 Intake and Outflow of Female UK Regular Forces 13 Table 7 UK Regular Forces intake by Service and age 14 Table 8 UK Regular Forces outflow by service and age 15 Graph 13 Naval Service intake and Outflow by age 16 Graph 14 Army intake and outflow by age 16 Graph 15 Royal Air Force intake and outflow by age 16 Table 9 Intake to and outflow from UK Regular Forces by Service 17 Graph 17 Intake to and outflow of UK Regular Forces 18 Graph 18 Intake to and outflow of UK Regular Officers 18 Graph 19 Intake to and outflow of UK Regular Other Ranks 18 Table 10 NATO Rank and Codes and UK Service Ranks 19 Glossary 20 1. UK Regular Forces does not include Gurkhas, Full Time Reserve Service (FTRS) personnel and mobilised reservists. 2 Revised flows tables The following tables have been revised : 5, 6, 7 & 8. Annual Personnel Report – New graphs A new table intake and outflow from UK Regular Forces by service and 3 subsequence graphs have been added to portray how flows have altered over time. Revisions to historic data from the Joint Personnel Administration System Defence Statistics has recently undertaken a major review of all personnel data from the Joint Personnel Administration system. This has resulted in changes to the strengths, intake and outflow data reported in the Annual, Quarterly and Monthly Personnel Reports, affecting the following periods to all 3 services: - Strength statistics : 1 May 2009 to 1 October 2011 (inclusive) - Flow statistics : from the period ending 31 March 2009 to the period ending 30 September 2011 The revised data are considered finalised and are therefore no longer marked provisional. Data for 1 November 2011 and subsequent dates are considered final. Introduction The UK Armed Forces Annual Personnel Report (APR) contains figures on the strength, intake and outflow of UK Regular Forces at 1 April 2013 with a focus on rank and age. It complements the Monthly and Quarterly Personnel Reports by providing greater detail about these characteristics, along with further analysis of the sex and ethnicity of the UK Regular Forces. The APR compares trends in 2011-12 to trends in 2012-13, time series on these trends can be found in Chapter 2 of UKDS on defence statistics website. Definitions and Notes to tables Figures are for UK Regular Forces (including both Trained and Untrained personnel), and therefore exclude Gurkhas, Full Time Reserve Service personnel and mobilised reservists. Intake to UK Regular Forces comprises new entrants, re-entrants, direct trained entrants (including professionally qualified officers) and intake from the reserves. It excludes all movements within the Regular Forces; including flows from the untrained to trained strength, transfers between Services and flows from ranks to officer due to commissioning. 3 Outflow from UK Regular Forces includes personnel leaving the Services, deaths, recalled reservists on release and outflow to the Home Service battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment (which disbanded on 31 March 2008). It does not include promotion from ranks to officers or flows between Services. Outflow does not include any flow to Long Term Absentee. Data sources, quality and methods All figures presented in tables in this publication meet the standards of quality and integrity demanded by the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. Where figures do not meet the standard they are deleted and shown in the table by the symbol “..”. Details of specific data issues are set out below. All ages quoted in this publication are based on ‘age at last Birthday’. Ages are derived by the formula ‘situation date (for strengths) or date of flow (for intake / outflow) minus date of birth’. For intake, where ‘date of flow’ data are unknown or not of sufficient quality, age is derived by taking the midpoint of the month preceding the individuals’ entry onto strength. For outflow, where ‘date of flow’ data are unknown or not of sufficient quality, age is derived by taking the midpoint of the month preceding the individuals’ exit from strength. Symbols and Conventions * not applicable .. not available - zero or rounded to zero ~ Fewer then five Italic figures are used for percentages and other rates, except where otherwise indicated. Where rounding has been used, totals and sub-totals have been rounded separately and so may not equal the sums of their rounded parts. When rounding to the nearest 10, numbers ending in “5” have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias. Percentages are calculated from unrounded data. 4 Feedback Defence Statistics welcome feedback on our statistical products. If you have any comments or questions about this publication or about Defence Statistics’ statistics in general, you can contact us as follows: Contact Defence Statistics (Tri Service) Tel : 0207 217 8896 Email : [email protected] 5 The rank structure of the UK Regular Armed Forces Each of the Armed Forces is structured according to its own operational needs. The Royal Air Force has proportionally more officers than the Naval Service, which in turn has more officers, proportionally, than the Army. The structure of officer strength by rank is similar across the 3 Services whilst Other Rank (OR) strength profiles by rank are more varied.