The Royal British Legion (RBL) commissioned RAND Europe to produce detailed forecasts of the size and demographics of the bereaved UK Armed Forces community to 2045. This often-overlooked group will likely become a smaller, yet still substantial group within the Armed Forces community, shaped by both the defence environment and broader societal changes.

Estimating the current and future size of the UK bereaved Armed Forces community

Catherine Galley, Linda Slapakova

ResearchPublished Mar 23, 2026

The UK Armed Forces community includes a number of families who are bereaved of a Service person or veteran, and those who serve or have served and who are affected by bereavement of a family member. It has been increasingly recognised among support providers that the support needs of this community are often overlooked. Nevertheless, there is limited understanding of the size of the bereaved community.

To support future decision making and strategies to support the bereaved community, the Royal British Legion (RBL) commissioned RAND Europe to produce detailed forecasts of the size of the bereaved UK Armed Forces community out to 2045. The research used publicly available data to estimate the size of different categories of the bereaved community (with categories capturing different kinds of bereavement circumstances) and to forecast how the size and demographics of this community are likely to change out to 2045.

RAND Europe’s research suggests that, if historical trends continue, the size of the bereaved serving community is likely to remain small, but this could change if conflict increases the casualty rate of serving personnel. Conversely, the number of bereaved individuals in the veteran community is likely to decrease as the community becomes smaller.

Key Findings

  • The projected size of the bereaved serving community is expected to remain relatively small, staying below 300 individuals becoming bereaved each year out to 2045. This community includes service personnel who are bereaved of a partner or a child, as well as partners and children who are bereaved of a serving person.
  • There are two factors that could potentially increase the number of bereaved individuals. First is a potential rise in the number of serving personnel and their partners aged over 60, who experience higher mortality rates due to age-related diseases. Second is the involvement of UK service personnel in an armed conflict, which would likely lead to higher casualty rates among personnel.
  • In contrast, the bereaved veteran community is anticipated to decline. The number of veterans bereaved each year, along with the partners and children bereaved of a veteran, is likely to decrease from approximately 100,000 to around 50,000 by 2045. This reduction is largely a result of the decrease in the overall size of the veteran population, as well as the large decrease in the number of veterans and partners aged over 80.

Recommendations

  • In assessing the evolving support needs of the bereaved community, support providers should be mindful of the changing defence landscape. Support structures need to be prepared for the potential increase in numbers of bereaved families resulting from a major conflict. Support providers also need to consider the changing nature of conflict and the multi-faceted, long-term implications that a major conflict would have for support needs for the bereaved community.
  • Service providers should be mindful of wider societal and demographic changes that are likely to affect the bereaved Armed Forces community. This includes both changing family structures that may impact the number of individuals affected by a bereavement (e.g. multi-parented families), the impact of bereavement (e.g. single parent families) and the high rate of unpaid caring responsibilities among the veteran community, which may lead to additional challenges where individuals become bereaved of their carer.

Topics

Document Details

  • Copyright: The Royal British Legion
  • Publisher: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Web-Only
  • Year: 2026
  • Pages: 39
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA4506-2
  • Document Number: RR-A4506-2

Citation

Chicago Manual of Style

Galley, Catherine and Linda Slapakova, Estimating the current and future size of the UK bereaved Armed Forces community. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2026. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4506-2.html.
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This research was prepared for the Royal British Legion and conducted by the Defence, Security and Justice Program within RAND Europe.

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