This topic contains information on UK Armed Forces and Ministry of Defence (MOD) civilian personnel. Data are obtained from MOD administrative systems, and are published on a monthly basis. The topic also includes health information, such as numbers of deaths, suicides, and operational casualties.
Publications
This is an annual publication containing strengths, intake and outflow from the UK Regular Forces. This data is broken down by Service, Officer/Rank, age and gender.
Compensation claims and payments for injury, illness or death caused by service in the UK armed forces.
The MOD uses the Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey (AFCAS) to collect information on the attitudes, opinions and circumstances of serving personnel. The main report of the AFCAS includes all the information contained in the Headline Report and as such there will be no future Headline Reports.
The AFCAS provides a consistent method of collecting information from Service personnel. Results are reported separately for Officers and for Other Ranks to reflect the often considerable differences between their roles, experiences and Terms and Conditions of Service and this report also identifies where statistically significant differences in AFCAS responses indicated different patterns of attitudes and opinions between Services.
Statistics on psychiatric morbidity in the Armed Forces.
Civilian MOD staff numbers by agency, trading fund and location
MOD civilian workforce by grade equivalence and budgetary area, and total civilian time series. Publication dates for this publication are subject to change, and may vary within two weeks before the date stated above.
Deaths in the UK Regular Armed Forces
This report provides figures for adverse work-related health outcomes occurring for health and safety reasons recorded on the Ministry of Defence Incident Recording and Information System (IRIS), for Armed Forces personnel and civilian MOD employees. The figures cover fatalities and various categories of injuries and illnesses.
Formerly known as Health and Safety incidents Among MOD Personnel. This report provides figures for adverse work-related health outcomes occurring for health and safety reasons recorded for Armed Forces personnel and civilian MOD employees. The figures cover fatalities and various categories of injuries and illnesses.
Medical Discharges from the Armed Forces
Search and rescue statistics
Military search and rescue statistics.
Military search and rescue statistics.
This report provides statistical information on Armed Forces personnel returned to the UK from Iraq and Afghanistan as a result of an injury or illness that have been treated at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM) and the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre (DMRC) Headley Court.
Previously known as Civilian Personnel Statistic (CPS01) MOD civilian workforce by grade equivalence and budgetary area, and total civilian time series. Publication dates for this publication are subject to change, and may vary within two weeks before the date stated above.
This quarterly report provides statistical information on the number of Armed Forces personnel who as a result of an injury sustained whilst deployed on Operations in Iraq or Afghanistan have suffered a traumatic or surgical amputation. This ranges from the loss of part of a finger or toe up to the loss of an entire limb(s). In addition, the numbers of significant multiple amputations have been provided on an annual basis.
This statistical release presents figures on the National and International locations of all UK Regular Armed Forces Personnel and MOD civilian personnel. The 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 all international global locations. Data is presented for each Service by Officer / Rank breakdown and non industrial / industrial breakdowns for civilian personnel (including Trading Funds and Locally Engaged Civilians).
A summary of Royal Air Force personnel statistics.
A summary of various Royal Navy personnel statistics.
Various Royal Navy personnel statistics.
A summary of search and rescue statistics.
Search and rescue statistics. Following a public consultation, from March 2012 this publication will be called Military Search and Rescue monthly report. The pocket brief will be discontinued
Quarterly Search and Rescue Statistics.
Statistics on suicide and open verdict deaths in the UK Regular Armed Forces
Stationed location and movements of UK regular forces worldwide
Intake and outflow to/ from UK regular forces by age
Strengths of, and intake and outflow to/ from, the UK regular forces, including breakdowns by gender
Full time strengths and trained requirements of the UK armed forces
Strengths and requirements of the UK Armed Forces
Strengths of, and intake and outflow to/from the UK armed forces, including breakdowns by sex and ethnicity
Outflow from trained strength from UK regular forces
UK reserves and cadets strengths
UK regular forces strengths by age
UK regular forces strengths by rank
This report provides statistical information on patients that were very seriously injured (VSI) or seriously injured (SI) on Operation HERRICK (Afghanistan) as listed on the initial Notification of Casualties (NOTICAS) signal. It complements and expands upon the fortnightly publication of operational casualty and fatality statistics which include counts of Service personnel VSI or SI.
This is an annual publication containing strengths, intake and outflow from the UK Regular Forces. This data is broken down by Service, Officer/Rank, age and gender.
Statistics on mental health of the Armed Forces.
Statistics on mental health in the Armed Forces.
This is a monthly publication containing requirements, strengths, intake and outflow from the UK Armed Forces by Service. Voluntary Outflow information by Service is also shown.
This is a monthly publication containing requirements, strengths, intake and outflow from the UK Armed Forces by Service. Voluntary Outflow information by Service is also shown.
A compendium listing all the revisions to strengths and flows for MPR between flow statistics form the period ending 31 March 2009 to the period ending 31 October 2011 and strength statistics from 1 May 2009 to 1 October 2011.
This is a quarterly publication containing requirements, strengths, intake and outflow from the UK Armed Forces. This data is broken down by Service, Officer/Rank, Training Indicator, gender and ethnicity. Outflow information by Service, officer/rank and exit reason, including Voluntary Outflow, is also shown.
This is a quarterly publication containing requirements, strengths, intake and outflow from the UK Armed Forces. This data is broken down by Service, Officer/Rank, Training Indicator, gender and ethnicity. Outflow information by Service, officer/rank and exit reason, including Voluntary Outflow, is also shown.
A compendium listing all the revisions to strengths and flows for QPR between flow statistics form the period ending 31 March 2009 to the period ending 31 October 2011 and strength statistics from 1 May 2009 to 1 October 2011.
The annual statistics compendium of the Ministry of Defence
A summary of the annual statistics compendium of the Ministry of Defence
A summary of the annual statistics compendium of the Ministry of Defence
Causes of deaths among veterans of the 1990/1991 Gulf Conflict
War Pensions statistics.
War Pensions statistics
Overview
Information published on UK Armed Forces personnel consists of monthly, quarterly and annual strengths and flows data, including breakdown by:
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service
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gender
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ethnic origin
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rank
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trained or untrained
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posted location
Statistics are also published on the strength of the Armed Forces against requirement, and corresponding surplus/deficits. Most statistics are only available for UK Regular Forces, but there is some information on the strength of the reserve forces. Data are also published on numbers in receipt of war pensions.
Published statistics on MOD civilian personnel include information on:
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gender and ethnic origin
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disability status
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full or part-time
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grade
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sickness absence
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Government Office Region (GOR)
Health statistics are also published, including:
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numbers and rates of deaths within the Armed Forces, including operational casualties
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numbers and rates of suicides within the Armed Forces
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information on Gulf veteran mortality
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Ministry of Defence Health and Safety information
Technical Data
Service personnel statistics
Armed Forces personnel statistics are produced from information held on the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system. Data are extracted on a monthly basis, and intake and outflow information are derived from these monthly snapshots.
The JPA system was rolled out in April 2006, since when there have been ongoing validation issues with some of the data. For this reason, recent service personnel data have been published as provisional and subject to change.
Some information, such as ethnic origin, is down to the individual to declare; so there can be a large number of unknowns in the data. For this reason, percentages of ethnic minorities are based on those with declared ethnic origin only, although the number of unknowns is also published.
Location data are based on the stationed location of the individual. Personnel deployed on operations to an area away from their stationed location are shown against their most recent stationed location.
MOD civilian statistics
MOD civilian statistics are produced from information held on the MOD’s Human Resources Management System (HRMS).
Some of the information relating to diversity reporting, such as disability and ethnicity status, is voluntary and based on self-declaration by individual HRMS users, containing unknown data where no declaration has been made, or users have selected the option of not willing to declare. Data are extracted on a monthly basis, and intake and outflow information are derived from these monthly snapshots. Data on Locally Engaged Civilian (LECs) and Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) personnel, that are included in some MOD civilian totals, are not held on HRMS and are supplied separately to DASA on a quarterly basis. Because of the limited availability of data about LECs and RFAs, DASA is only supplied with a full-time/part-time split for LECs and a gender split for RFAs.
Health statistics
Statistics are published on numbers and rates of deaths of UK Regular Armed Forces personnel, and also on operational casualties for regulars and reservists. Notifications of deaths are provided to DASA on a weekly basis by the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Cell. Death rates are age and gender standardised, so that they can be compared across time and across the three services.
Cause of death information is coded according to the World Health Organisation’s International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Health Related Problems 10th revision (ICD-10). In some cases, cause of death may be updated following coroner’s verdicts. In the case of suicides, both coroner-confirmed suicides and open verdict deaths are included, in line with the definition used by the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
Gulf Mortality statistics look at the number and causes of deaths among UK veterans of the 1990/91 Gulf Conflict. The mortality rates of 53,409 UK Gulf veterans were analysed alongside those of a comparison group, the Era cohort. The Era comparison group consists of 53,143 UK Armed Forces personnel of similar age, gender, Service, regular/reservist status and rank who were in Service on 1 January 1991 but did not deploy to the Gulf. The findings include those who died while in Service and those who died after they had left the Services. The main source of information on the deaths is ONS’s NHS Central Register and the General Register Office for Scotland. Three additional sources of information have been used to compile deaths in Service: information from casualty branches, pay and personnel systems and medical documents. In-Service deaths were sent to ONS for independent coding. Coroners’ verdicts are provided by ONS for deaths in England and Wales. For Scotland, accidental and violent deaths are investigated by the Procurator Fiscal.
Glossary
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Ethnic Minority
Before new classifications were introduced in the 2001 Census of Population, ‘Ethnic Minority’ was defined as anyone who had classified themselves in any category other than ‘White’. It is known that some in the ‘Other’ category had white skin colour but used the category to indicate that they were non-English. One reason that the nationality classification was introduced was so that national as well as ethnic origin or affiliation could be reflected.
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Ethnic origin
Ethnic origin is the ethnic grouping to which a person has indicated that they belong. The classifications used were revised for the 2001 Census of Population when a classification of nationality was also collected and again in the 2011 Census of Population. These revised definitions were also used to re-survey members of the Armed Forces and the Civil Service in 2001/02.
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Full-Time Equivalent (FTE)
FTE is a measure of the size of the workforce that takes account of the fact that some people work part-time. Prior to 1 April 1995, part-time employees were assumed to work 50 per cent of normal hours, but since then, actual hours worked has been used in DASA’s statistics. The average hours worked by part-timers is about 60 per cent of full-time hours.
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Full-Time Reserve Service
Those on FTRS fill Service posts on a full-time basis while being a member of one of the reserve services, either as an ex-regular or as a volunteer. In the case of the Army and the Naval Service, these will be posts that would ordinarily have been filled by regular service personnel, in the case of the RAF, FTRS personnel also fill posts designated solely for them.
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Head count
The head count is a measure of the size of the workforce that counts all people equally regardless of their hours of work.
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Human Resources Management System (HRMS)
HRMS is the system used by Ministry of Defence civilians to deal with matters of pay, leave and other personal administrative tasks.
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ICD-10
International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Health-related Problems, 10th revision. ICD is a coding system for diseases and signs, symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances and external causes of injury or diseases, as classified by the World Health Organisation.
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Industrial staff
Industrial staff (also known as skill zone staff) are civilian personnel employed primarily in a trade, craft or other manual labour occupation. This covers a wide range of work such as industrial technicians, air freight handlers, storekeepers, vergers and drivers.
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Intake
The intake are those entering the Armed Forces or Civilian workforce. This includes new recruits, re-entrants and transfers from other Forces. If taken over a sufficiently long time, intake figures may include the same individuals more than once, if they were re-entrants.
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Joint Casualty and Compassionate Cell
The Joint Casualty and Compassionate Cell provides a joint casualty and compassionate casualty reporting centre for all the Armed Forces.
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Joint Personnel Administration (JPA)
JPA is the system used by the Armed Forces to deal with matters of pay, leave and other personal administrative tasks. Implemented on 20 March 2006, replacing a number of single-service IT systems.
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Locally Entered/Engaged Personnel
A civilian employee recruited overseas exclusively for employment in support of the UK Armed Forces deployed in a particular overseas theatre (or in support of the Sovereign Base Areas Administration in Cyprus) and on terms and conditions of service applicable only to that overseas theatre or Administration, including the dependents of UK military personnel or UK-based civilian staff employed in that overseas theatre (who are sometimes separately identified as UK Dependents). LECs are not civil servants.
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Ministry of Defence (MOD)
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is the UK government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces. The principal objective of the MOD is to defend the UK and its interests. The MOD also manages day-to-day running of the Armed Forces, contingency planning and defence procurement.
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Naval Service
The Naval Service is comprised of the Royal Navy (including QARNNS) and the Royal Marines together. The role of the Royal Navy is to contribute to a peaceful environment in which the UK's foreign policy and trade can flourish and in which the security of the UK and her Overseas Territories is assured.
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Non-Commissioned Officer
Non-commissioned officers are ratings of Leading Hand and above in the Royal Navy, other ranks of lance corporal and above in the Army and other ranks of corporal and above in the Royal Marines and RAF.
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Non-industrial Staff
Non-industrial staff are civilian personnel who are not primarily employed in a trade, craft or other manual labour occupation. This covers a wide range of staff undertaking work such as administrative, policy, procurement, finance, medical, dental, teaching, policing, science and engineering.
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Notification of Casualty
The formalised system for casualty reporting within the UK Armed Forces used to inform Chain of Command and next of kin of an individual’s condition.
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Officer
An officer is a member of the Armed Forces holding the Queen’s Commission. This includes ranks from Sub-Lt/2nd Lt/Pilot Officer up to Admiral of the Fleet/Field Marshal/Marshal of the Royal Air Force, but excludes non-commissioned officers.
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Other ranks
Other ranks are members of the Royal Marines, Army and Royal Air Force who are not officers. The equivalent group in the Royal Navy is known as ’Ratings’.
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Outflow
The outflow are those leaving the Armed Forces or Civil Service for any reason. Those who rejoin and then leave again will be counted twice if the time period includes both exit dates.
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Part-time
Part-time civil servants are those working fewer than 37 hours a week (36 hours in London), excluding meal breaks.
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Regular Reserves
Former members of the UK regular forces who have a liability for service with the Reserve forces. Includes the Royal Fleet Reserve, Army Reserve and Royal Air Force Reserve as well as other individuals liable to recall.
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Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service
Constituted in 1905, this is a civilian manned fleet, owned by the Ministry of Defence. Its main task is to supply warships of the Royal Navy at sea with fuel, food, stores and ammunition which they need to remain operational while away from base. It also provides aviation support for the Royal Navy, together with amphibious support and secure sea transport for Army units and their equipment. Its employees are full-time civil servants, but who come under the Naval Discipline Act when deployed to sea under naval command.
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Stationed Location
Location statistics may be compiled based on stationed location or deployed location. Stationed location is where an individual is permanently based, as opposed to deployed location that is where an individual is physically located at a particular point in time and is typically used for short tours of duty.
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Trading Fund
Trading Funds were introduced by the Government under the Trading Funds Act 1973 as a ‘means of financing trading operations of a government department which, hitherto, have been carried out on Vote’. They are self-accounting units that have greater freedom than other government departments in managing their own financial and management activities. They are also free to negotiate their own terms and conditions with their staff and for this reason their grading structures do not always match that of the rest of the Ministry, and this is reflected in some of the tables. Examples include DSTL and the UK Hydrographic Office.
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UK Regular Forces
UK Regular Forces include all trained and untrained personnel. Gurkhas, Full Time Reserve Service personnel, and mobilised reservists are excluded.
Contact Details
For statistical enquiries about this topic, please contact:
Defence Analytical Services and Advice
Email: dasa-enquiries-mailbox@mod.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7807 8792
3-K-50 MOD Main Building Whitehall London SW1A 2HB
