Results from the 2025 Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey (AFCAS) are now available.
Statistics from the annual AFCAS are used by both internal Ministry of Defence (MOD) teams and external bodies to inform the development of policy and measure the impact of decisions affecting personnel, including major programmes such as the Armed Forces Covenant.
Highlights:
- Overall, four in ten personnel are satisfied with their pension benefits, unchanged since 2023
- Attitudes towards pay show some signs of improvement in 2025
- Just over four in ten personnel are satisfied with their Service life in general, remaining at the lowest reported level
- Satisfaction with responses to SFA maintenance has improved slightly this year
Pensions:
The report states:
“Overall, four in ten personnel are satisfied with their pension benefits, unchanged since 2023. Officers’ satisfaction with their pension benefits has been stable for the last few years following an increase in 2021. Satisfaction amongst Other Ranks has fluctuated a little more over the same period, continuing to increase in 2022, but then fell two years in a row. Officers continue to be considerably more satisfied with their pension (62%) compared to Other Ranks (34%).
RAF personnel continue to be the most satisfied with their pension benefits, at 46% This compares to 41% of Royal Navy and 37% of Army personnel. Royal Marines are the least satisfied with their pension benefits, at 30%.“
Our Comments:
The graph at Section 5 shows the stats, and you will notice the commissioned/non-commissioned divide which remains significant.
The increase of 2% from 38% to 40% pension satisfaction compared to last year reflects the modest increase in overall pay and allowances satisfaction. And while frustrations with the AFPS 15 Remedy (McCloud) remain, the implementation process itself is now underway; you can read our latest sitrep on that here.
For us, these results continue to reinforce the importance of our efforts to raise awareness of the benefits and complexities of the Armed Forces Pension Schemes (and AFPS 15 in particular) across the Armed Forces community.
Do you know the key benefits if AFPS15? Read them here.
Read the AFCAS report in full here.
