Defence

Fewer than half as many people in the armed forces as in 1989

People serving full time in the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, UK, June 1959 to June 2026; and the full-time regular forces of each service, 2000 to 2026. Number of people.

149,000 serving full time in June 2026, against 322,000 in September 1989, the last count before the Berlin Wall fell

Latest figures

Notes

• The top graph is the Ministry of Defence's count of people serving in the armed forces, as the ONS publishes it in its figures for jobs, rounded to the nearest thousand, at the end of each quarter. It is close to the Ministry's own count of everyone serving full time: the regular forces, Gurkhas (soldiers from Nepal who serve in the British Army) and reservists serving full time, 148,128 on 1 July 2026. Part-time reservists are not included.
• National service called up young men for compulsory military service until the last call-ups in 1960, which is why the forces were so much larger at the start of the series.
• The regular forces are people who have joined the Army, Royal Navy or Royal Air Force full time, including those still in training. They don't include Gurkhas or reservists. The Royal Navy includes the Royal Marines.
• Regular forces from April 2012 are counted every three months, from the Ministry of Defence's quarterly service personnel statistics. Before then they are counted on 1 April in 2000 and in each year from 2006, from UK Defence Statistics 2012, which rounded them to the nearest 10. It has no figures for 2001 to 2005: the lines join 2000 and 2006.

Sources

• Office for National Statistics, Workforce jobs: HM Forces (LOJX)
• Ministry of Defence, Quarterly service personnel statistics (Tables 1 and 2a to 2c), and UK Defence Statistics 2012 (Table 2.5)

More on defence

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