The UK is among a diminishing minority of countries that recruit children to their armed forces. It does so despite ethical considerations, higher costs, lower outcomes of training, and the inability to deploy under-18s operationally. Jim Patrick Wyke makes the case for a more efficient all-adult military.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as anyone under the age of 18. Globally, three-quarters of countries have a minimum age for military recruitment of 18 or higher; yet the UK remains an international outlier in enlisting 16- and 17-year-olds into the Armed Forces. Over the past decade, under-18-year-old recruits have made up on average over 30 per cent of the British Army’s annual recruitment intake. The UK’s decision to bolster one-third of its military with children is brutal, costly and largely inefficient in improving the country’s national security.
There are significant risks in placing under-18s in a military environment, even before they’re sent into the field. The Army Foundation College in Harrogate (AFC-H) is the Army’s dedicated training centre for 16-year-old recruits. Over the past decade, numerous cases of mistreatment at AFC-H have come to light, including the violent abuse of recruits and serious sexual offences, with several instructors convicted for sexual crimes against children under their care. The mental health impacts of under-18 recruitment are also stark, with disproportionate rates of long-term mental health problems and higher suicide rates.
In addition to these ethical issues, the recruitment of minors presents a series of dilemmas for the British Armed Forces at a time of over-stretch that further strain its financial resources, undermine its capacity to deploy personnel operationally, and undercut the educational and career potential of its recruits. Put together, these factors suggest that the continued recruitment of under-18s is irrational and counter-productive, raising risks and costs while undermining readiness and skills.
Expensive and inefficient
The military recruitment of under-18s remains an expensive and inefficient way to provide manpower for a modern military. The Armed Forces must direct resources for the training of under-18s that an all-adult recruitment model does not require. This includes the provision of formal education and child-specific safeguarding measures for school-aged recruits.
These additional staffing and educational provisions mean that the financial cost to the Army for each successfully trained under-18 recruit is much higher than it is for those who join aged 18+. Monetarily, when we factor in that younger recruits tend to serve in the army for slightly longer than adults – adjusting costs for a notional ten-year career – the extra resources required to train under-18s and the higher dropout rate of children in military training (33% for under-18s, 23% for adult recruits) means total training costs amount to £176,000 per successfully trained 16-year-old versus £100,000 per adult recruit.
A transition to an all-adult recruitment model, for the infantry alone, would see annual savings of around £40 million. This is roughly double what the Army is forecast to spend on advertising in 2025/26. CRIN calculated that the money could be used to give a £550 annual retention bonus to every single currently serving member of the Army, as well as a £2,620 golden handshake for every adult infantry recruit on completion of training.
This calculated cost saving is only for a transition to an all-adult recruitment model for the infantry. The savings for a transition to an all-adult recruitment model for the Armed Forces would be much higher. Research published in 2011 estimated savings of between £81.5 to and £94 million per year (equivalent to about £122-141 million in 2026), although total British Armed Forces personnel have declined by a quarter since then.
Undeployable personnel
In addition to the cost burden of under-18-year-old recruitment, there is also the issue of the long training and deployment times. In an era where the government is warning of the need for the Armed Forces to be ready to fight a war on short notice, the long training and deployment times associated with child military recruitment seem like a luxury.
The UK is a signatory to the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC, 2000), which rightly requires the government to refrain from deploying soldiers until they reach the age of 18. As well as being unable to deploy until their 18th birthday, before they join trained strength, all 16-year-old recruits must first complete the “long course” at AFC-H, a 49-week basic training course, followed by their initial trade training elsewhere, which takes on average another 12 weeks. A typical 16-year-old recruit on the infantry training programme is in training for a total of 61 weeks. A recruit on the infantry programme who is aged 18+ is in training for 28 weeks and may be deployed once this is finished.
To summarise, a 16-year-old who joined the 2026 March intake at AFC-H may not deploy until their 18th birthday and not until at least May 2027. In contrast, a recruit aged 18+ who joined at the same time could deploy by September 2026, a full eight months earlier.
The Army’s current recruitment model means that a third of its yearly intake cannot be deployed for the first two years of their careers. The UK, facing long lead times before deployment and for whom children make up a higher percentage of yearly Army recruitment, is at a competitive disadvantage compared to its peers that are already on an all-adult recruitment model. Given the Army is particularly reliant on under-18 recruits for front-line combat roles, such as the infantry, the Government’s current approach to the recruitment age is actively weakening national security in a time of crisis.
Inadequate education offering
The final contradiction in the Government’s approach to the military recruitment of under-18s is how it pairs with government educational targets, and the Army’s recognition of “an increasing Army need for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM)” skills. The Armed Forces is the only employer in the UK exempt from the Education and Skills Act, which requires under-18s in England who leave school to participate in education until the age of 18. The Army does not guarantee an education which would meet the minimum requirements of the Education and Skills Act. Recruits at AFC-H are offered Functional Skills courses in English, Maths and ICT, considered by the government to be a “stepping stone” towards the GCSE standard, but not a stand-alone qualification. Recruits are not offered the opportunity to take or resit GCSEs, despite the Department for Education stating that good GCSEs in English and maths are ‘critical’ for all young people, whatever their background and career path.
The Army requires GCSE or higher qualifications for approximately half of all regular army positions, explicitly excluding Functional Skills qualifications. By failing to offer GCSEs, the Army is failing to provide under-18-year-old recruits with the necessary academic qualifications to succeed in an Army career. Most recruits under the age of 18 would have stayed in civilian education if they couldn’t sign up until 18. The Army’s own research (Junior Entry Review, 2019) shows that 50% of recruits who sign up at 16 would still sign up under an all-adult recruitment model.
In summary, career progression in the Army requires minimum academic qualifications that the Army’s current educational offer to under-18-year-old recruits does not support. If recruits didn’t join Army training, they would likely continue to study in civilian settings, expanding their qualifications and thereby enabling greater progression should they still join up at 18. The army’s current recruitment model not only disrupts under-18s education but also inadvertently limits and narrows the talent pool available to the Army and is at odds with the Army policy to grow the number of STEM-educated personnel.
As a consequence of these policies, under-18-year-old recruits who embark on an Army career will find themselves limited to those roles which require the least qualifications, such as the infantry and other front-line combat positions. These positions have an increased likelihood of experiencing some form of physical or psychological trauma, and of being killed. Rather than backfilling the infantry with trainees recruited at 16, moving to an all-adult recruitment model would provide an overall better educated and more flexible recruitment pool, who are able to fill a wider range of army positions, with a higher likelihood of retention.
Conclusion
The current model of the military recruitment of minors is costly, inefficient and operationally unsound, harming UK military readiness. It fails the recruits it purports to offer opportunity to and, with recent stories regarding the sexual and physical abuse of recruits in training, is an embarrassing distraction for the Army.
In an era of complex security challenges and professional armed forces, the UK Armed Forces’ reliance on 16-year-old recruits is an anachronism the Services can ill afford. By transitioning to an all-adult recruitment model, the UK Armed Forces can save money, reduce wasteful turnover, and channel resources more effectively, while improving its resilience and readiness, and ensuring consistency with international standards and best practices. The time for an all-adult military is now.
All references and calculations in this article are available on request to the author. More information and data on CRIN’s campaign to end military recruitment of under-18s can be found here.
CRIN is currently working on a new report on the Army Foundation College Harrogate that uncovers more evidence of alleged abuse and compares the educational and child safeguarding systems in place in the British Army with the conceptual and statutory model of child protection expected in UK civilian institutions. They expect to publish by Q2 2026.
The views and opinions expressed in posts on the Rethinking Security blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the network and its broader membership.
Image Credit: CRIN.
