Air Force: Recruitment

(asked on 16th February 2024) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many and what proportion of applications to enlist in the Royal Air Force were rejected in each of the last five years, broken down by the reason for rejection.


Answered by
Andrew Murrison Portrait
Andrew Murrison
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
This question was answered on 26th February 2024

The number of Royal Air Force (RAF) Regular applications rejected by date of application, and the proportion of applications this represents can be found at Table 1 below. Applications submitted through the Defence Recruiting System (DRS) are also distinguished from those submitted through the Recruitment Information Technology System (RITS).

Table 1:

Application dates and system

Total number of rejections

Percentage of total applications

1 July 2018 – 30 June 2019 (DRS)

14,040

46.7%

1 July 2019 – 30 June 2020 (DRS)

14,511

40.8%

1 July 2020 – 30 June 2021 (DRS)

19,403

54.2%

1 July 2021 – 31 December 2021 (DRS)

7,877

62.9%

1 March 2022 – 30 June 2022 (RITS)

3,509

67.8%

1 July 2022 – 30 June 2023 (RITS)

18,658

60.9%

Source: Analysis (Air)

Table 2 shows the reasons RAF Regular applications submitted through DRS were rejected as a proportion of the total number of RAF Regular applications made on DRS in that timeframe.

Table 2:

1 July 2018 – 30 June 2019 (DRS)

1 July 2019 – 30 June 2020 (DRS)

1 July 2020 – 30 June 2021 (DRS)

1 July 2021 – 31 December 2021 (DRS)

Age

1.1%

1.0%

0.0%

-

Commonwealth

0.0%

0.4%

2.1%

1.1%

Education Attainment

12.3%

8.0%

7.8%

10.0%

Failed to Attend Event(s)

8.0%

4.8%

4.1%

2.6%

Finance

0.0%

0.0%

0.0%

-

Fitness

0.5%

0.2%

0.1%

0.0%

Ineligible

5.5%

5.7%

5.6%

7.0%

Medical

6.0%

5.7%

9.8%

8.7%

Motivation/Commitment

7.1%

9.9%

12.8%

10.4%

Officer and Aircrew Selection Centre (OASC)

1.5%

0.9%

0.6%

0.0%

Other

0.4%

1.3%

6.4%

17.4%

Psychometric Test Result

2.5%

1.6%

1.2%

0.8%

Role Availability

0.0%

0.1%

2.8%

4.1%

Security Clearance

0.0%

0.0%

0.0%

0.0%

Tattoo Policy

0.1%

0.2%

0.3%

0.2%

Unsuitable for Interview

1.6%

1.0%

0.6%

0.7%

Source: Analysis (Air)

Please note, percentages have been rounded to the nearest 1 decimal point. In the case of 0.0%, it is not actually zero but instead a very small number that rounds to 0.0%. Where the value is 0, this is represented by ‘-’.

DRS closed in December 2021. Rejections from this system are as at 31 May 2022, the last available data.

RITS has been in use since March 2022. Rejections from this system are as at July 2023, the applications may have since been subject to rejection.

Reasons for rejection on RITS are not held by Analysis Air who are the source of the tables above. The rejections on DRS with a rejection type of 'Other' increased for the period for 1 July 2021 – 31 December 2021 as applications have been closed and candidates advised to reapply on RITS.

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