The first table outlines the general reasons for candidates disengaging from the British Army’s recruitment pipeline, whilst the second table outlines the top 5 reasons.

Applications	13/14	%	14/15	%	15/16	%	16/17	%	17/18	%	18/19	%
Withdrawn	76,640	66.2	76,300	60.3	72,380	57.4	116,210	60.7	71,190	60.4	54,680	58.9
Rejected	24,220	21.2	34,590	27.3	38,960	30.9	60,530	31.6	37,090	31.2	22,790	24.5
Continue	14,360	12.6	15,700	12.4	14,650	11.6	14,760	7.7	10,070	8.5	15,380	16.6
Total Apps	114,220		126,600		125,990		191,500		118,950		92,830

Withdrawn	13/14	14/15	15/16	16/17	17/18	18/19
Non-Productive Enquiry	22,500	37,650	36,510	63,530	40,730	36,050
Other – Refer to Journal	44,440	25,520	21,100	31,580	192,950	N/A
Family/Personal Reasons	780	1,800	2,730	4,920	5,370	9,170
Joining Other Service	1,060	3,000	3,200	5,670	3,790	Now Recorded in ‘Other’
Other	6,870	8,330	8,850	10,510	8,960	9,460

Notes:

1. This data has been provided from a single service source rather than official statistics produced by Defence Statistics.
2. Recruiting years fall in line with Financial years (01 April to 31 March)
3. Figures have been rounded to 10 for presentational purposes; numbers ending in “5” have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias.
4. Unrounded figures are used in the calculation of percentages.
5. “Other – Refer to Journal” was a category that was in use before the current Recruitment system (DRS) was implemented in 2016 but was subsequently phased out.
   • Every candidate had a journal as part of their application record which was an area of free text where information could be recorded.

Reference

FOI 2020/03250/04/02 dated 06 April 2020.