Recommendation 26

However, for deterrence to be effective, the UK’s Armed Forces must be credible.81 Such credibility is undermined by widely reported recruitment and retention issues, with eight people leaving the Armed Forces for every five who are recruited.82 Despite the MoD’s assurances that it took this issue very seriously, it accepted that recruitment and retention is a problem and that this had led to workforce pressures.83 The MoD acknowledged that its current workforce plan was not working in the way it wanted, and said that its number one risk to delivering defence priorities both now and in the future was not attracting the right number of people with the skills that it needs.84 To address this, it is looking at ways to provide greater flexibility in Armed Forces careers, such as “zigzag careers” with people coming in and out of the services.85