UK Tries to Recruit More Young, Women, Minority Troops With 'Gap Year'

A new programme to get more young people into the Armed Forces will see the British government offering a ‘gap year’ option from 2026, as a years-long recruitment crisis rolls on.

Young people up to the age of 25 will have the option to take a ‘gap year’ in the military from 2026, with the programme intending to induct as many as 1,000 people a year, but starting with a more modest pilot of 150. Under the programme those who sign up would train and serve for just two years and wouldn’t be obligated to deploy abroad, reports The Guardian.

The scheme comes amid rising concern in military circles that a considerable gulf has opened between those who serve and the vast majority who do not, with most British families now having no exposure to the armed forces whatsoever. This is seen as a problem as the government, military, and NATO says the country should be preparing to transition to a warfighting state, what is repeatedly called a “whole of society event” by military thinkers.

As discussed earlier this year, the military is also concerned that longer service obligations may be putting off “women and people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds” and it is hoped offering a gap-year option will encourage these people who join the military.

Yet the armed force already has several options for brief stints of service and a major limiting factor on recruitment remains the infamously bad recruitment system which is so inefficient it puts many good candidates off, and the limitations of what are called the ‘offer’, the quality of life in the armed forces. The Army has long offered a short service commission, where young officers train and serve for just three years, and even a one year ‘gap year commission’, which only managed to recruit ten people last year.

Military recruitment also used to benefit from being something of an employer of last resort, a better alternative to starving. The United Kingdom has a long-established and all-encompassing welfare state, leaving the military drawing from a dwindling pool of of positively-engaged volunteers, drawn from a dwindling pool.