Army: Costs

(asked on 12th November 2021) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent estimate he has made of the average cost to the British Army of employing an infantry soldier; and what estimate he has made of that cost in each year 2016-17 to 2020-21.


Answered by
Leo Docherty Portrait
Leo Docherty
Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
This question was answered on 17th November 2021

Average cost (Basic Pay/ Employer National Insurance/ Pension) of an Infantry soldier in the Other Ranks of the British Army:

Financial Year Ending

31 Mar 2017

31 Mar 2018

31 Mar 2019

31 Mar 2020

31 Mar 2021

Infantry (Other Ranks)

£41,673.70

£41,800.57

£42,698.39

£46,232.94

£47,352.40

Source: Defence Statistics (Cost-Modelling)

Notes/Caveats:

  1. The Average Cost in the table above represents Basic Pay/ Employer National Insurance/ Pension only and does not include other costs such as those associated with recruitment, training, clothing, stock consumption, infrastructure, or medical/dental care.
  2. The Basic Pay includes X-Factor payments.
  3. The Employer National Insurance would be 0% for some of the populations (I.e., general population under the age of 21 and apprentices under the age of 25).
  4. The Average Cost was determined using the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) data. The mean average across the Infantry soldiers was calculated using the mean average of every Infantry soldier’s pay records to create a monthly estimate, which was then multiplied by 12 to obtain a yearly estimate.
  5. The Financial Year for statistical purposes runs from 1 April to 31 March.
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