Armed Forces: Discharges
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what information his Department holds on the reasons why staff leave the armed forces; and what the most common reasons are.
Answered by Al Carns
The number of people who have left the Armed Forces within the last five years can be found in the table below, and was extracted from the quarterly Service Personal Statistics 2024 on gov.uk at the following link
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-2024
12 Months Ending: | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
31 Mar | 31 Mar | 31 Mar | 31 Mar | 31 Mar | |
Tri Service: | |||||
Trained (RN/RM and RAF) and Trade Trained (Army) Outflow | 11,797 | 8,649 | 10,610 | 13,464 | 13,275 |
Voluntary Outflow | 7,379 | 5,268 | 5,978 | 8,400 | 8,101 |
Time Expiry | 1,854 | 1,572 | 2,026 | 2,147 | 1,960 |
Other Reasons | 2,564 | 1,809 | 2,606 | 2,917 | 3,214 |
According to the Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey (AFCAS) 2024, the top three factors increasing, or strongly increasing, intentions to leave were due to the impact of Service life on family and personal life; opportunities outside the Service and the amount of pay. Full results can be found at the
following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/armed-forces-continuous-attitude-survey-2024
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