The UK Ministry of Defence will reduce the number of military personnel by 17,000 across all three services, with 11,000 redundancies to be made over four years.

The remaining reductions will be achieved through a decrease in recruiting and cancelled replacements, with the planned reductions to be fully achieved by April 2015.

The first tranche of redundancies is set to be announced in September 2011, with those volunteering for redundancy set to serve a six-month notice and non-volunteers serving a 12-month notice. All non-volunteers for redundancy will also be afforded the opportunity to apply for a transfer.

Secretary of State for Defence Liam Fox said, “We would prefer not to have to make these reductions, but the government conducted the SDSR against the background of a dire fiscal situation in the economy and a £38bn black hole in the defence budget which requires difficult decisions.”