Time taken to get recruits into service has been significantly reduced, reveals Pollard

The time it takes for a recruit to enter military service has been significantly reduced, Luke Pollard has announced.

The Armed Forces Minister said the median time it takes to go through recruitment and enter military service has been cut from a peak of 475 days in 2022 down to 290 days in 2024.

He said this represented a reduction of 39%, with the individual services "pursuing options to reduce further".

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Mr Pollard said Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Government had "inherited a crisis in recruitment" and was focusing on improving it.

"Defence is committed to reducing the time taken for candidates to pass through Armed Forces recruitment processes and enter service," he said.

"Recent policies have included setting an ambition to make a conditional offer of employment to candidates within 10 days, and a provisional training start date within 30 days if they desire it."

He said these actions would look to inform the Armed Forces Recruitment Service, which is being put in place to improve the speed at which people can join the military.

His comments came in the form of a written answer to a question from Ian Roome, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Devon, who asked how the MOD has improved how long it takes for the new recruits to receive a formal job offer.

The Chief of the Defence Staff recently said the British Army was still on a "downwards trajectory" when it comes to the number of personnel leaving.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin also pointed out the Armed Forces were getting smaller each month by around 200-300 people.

He did, however, point out that the Navy has "stabilised" and is starting to "get bigger", while the RAF is "reasonably stabilised".

In another written question, James Cartlidge, the Conservative MP for South Suffolk, asked what the MOD's targets were for applications for all three services in the 2025-2026 financial year.

Mr Pollard reiterated how the Government inherited its recruitment and retention crisis and said the Army had a target, for Regular soldier, Regular Officer, Army Reserve soldier and Officer roles, of 198,000.

He also said "neither the Royal Navy nor Royal Air Force set formal targets for volume of applications".