Why the Scots Have Fallen Out of Love With the British Army
13th April 2025
Scotland was once a great recruiting ground for the UK’s armed forces. Not any more.
In 2014, the year of the independence referendum, the British Army reported an official intake of 630 untrained soldiers from Scotland.
By 2023 that number had dropped to 330, less than one a day. In the past financial year, it was 370. That is a decline of 41 per cent in a decade. It is the same story for the Royal Navy and the RAF, where Scottish recruitment has plunged 37 per cent and 53 per recent respectively since Scotland voted on its constitutional future.
The British Army has been shrinking since the Cold War, winding up entire historic Scottish regiments, severing multigenerational links with communities as it does so. Recruitment has fallen in England too, but by nothing like the scale seen in Scotland. For the army, it is down 13 per cent across the UK.