While most personnel leaving the UK Armed Forces experience a positive transition to civilian life, a minority experience challenges during transition, including unemployment, poor mental health, harmful drinking, homelessness and interactions with justice system. This report estimates the cost of adverse transitions from the Armed Forces to the public and charity sector.

The cost of poor military-to-civilian transition among the UK Armed Forces community

Findings from ‘Understanding the Transition from Military to Civilian Life’

Catherine Galley, Linda Slapakova

ResearchPublished Dec 3, 2025

Approximately 15,000 people leave the UK Armed Forces each year, with most having a positive transition to civilian life. However, a minority of ex-Service personnel experience challenges during transition, including unemployment, poor mental health, homelessness and involvement with the criminal justice system. These challenges can impact Service leavers’ and their families’ wellbeing in the short and long term, but may also present significant costs to government and the third sector. As part of broader research on the contemporary transition process and experiences thereof among UK Service leavers and their families, this report examines the cost of poor military-to-civilian transition.

We examined the prevalence of adverse transition-related outcomes among Service leavers, the cost of these outcomes to the public and charity sector and the estimated total annual cost of adverse outcomes experienced by individuals in the four years after they leave the Armed Forces. While limited data on the prevalence of some adverse transition-related outcomes is a barrier for more robust cost estimates, we discuss the estimated cost of poor transitions and the potential of interventions and programmes within the sector that could reduce this cost alongside improving Service leaver outcomes.

Key Findings

For individuals who have left Service in the past four years, the cost of poor transition is estimated to range from £63m to £546m annually, with a mean estimated cost of £258m in 2025.

  • This cost is driven by a small minority of Service leavers experiencing adverse outcomes. While Service leavers experience most adverse outcomes at similar levels to civilians, they do experience higher levels of mental health issues, post-traumatic stress disorder and harmful drinking. Furthermore, even where Service leavers experience adverse outcomes at similar levels to civilians, this can still incur substantial costs to the public and charity sector, such as costs relating to involvement in the justice system.

Two adverse outcomes are responsible for over half of the overall cost of poor transition: involvement with the criminal justice system and harmful drinking.

  • While these costs are primarily driven by a minority of Service leavers facing poor transitions, this underscores the potential financial savings achievable through targeted support or interventions to remove the prevalence or extent of such outcomes.

There may be additional costs associated with drug dependency, debt and financial insecurity and family breakdown during transition.

  • However poor data on the prevalence of these outcomes means they could not be included in the overall cost estimate. Further research is also required to understand when adverse outcomes occur and to what extent these result from leaving the Armed Forces.

Recommendations

This research is part of a wider study which produced recommendations for improving transition-related support for UK Service leavers and their families. This report makes three primary recommendations:

  • The sector should prioritise robust impact and economic evaluations to understand which interventions could best help to reduce and mitigate adverse transition outcomes.
  • Future research should seek to understand the prevalence of drug dependency, debt and financial insecurity, and family breakdown among Service leavers as current data is sparse and outdated.
  • Future research should seek to understand when Service leavers experience negative outcomes and the factors contributing to negative outcomes (including pre-Service, in-Service and post-Service experiences).

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Citation

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Galley, Catherine and Linda Slapakova, The cost of poor military-to-civilian transition among the UK Armed Forces community: Findings from ‘Understanding the Transition from Military to Civilian Life’. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3493-2.html.
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This research was funded by Forces in Mind Trust and conducted by the Defence, Security and Justice Program of RAND Europe.

This publication is part of the RAND research report series. Research reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND research reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.

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