Recommendation 16

The Department acknowledged that the shortages across all these roles were very important, with the Chief of the Defence Staff stating that personnel had been one of his top two priorities in his previous role as Chief of the Air Staff. The Department told us that the training time required for engineers meant that it would take three or four years before the programme had the required numbers.35 This includes recruiting the 168 additional engineers—a 20% increase—required to address the shortage caused by miscalculating the number of engineers required per aircraft. The Department noted that the shortage of engineers is a problem that affects the whole of the armed forces.36