New breed of Army leaders will skip career ladder

ARMY leaders will be recruited directly from the civilian world rather than rising through the ranks, under a proposed overhaul to bring in specialist skills for 21st-century warfare.

The plan to hire straight into the regular Army’s middle and possibly even higher ranks will overturn generations of tradition and a career structure that has seen leaders work their way up the ladder. The Army is considering hiring from industry and the boardroom to get civilians with careers in areas such as cyber technology and logistics.

The scheme for so-called “lateral entry” is being drawn up by Gen Sir Nick Carter, Chief of the General Staff. Such recruitment is designed to make up for shortfalls in hi-tech skills, but is likely to clash with the military’s tradition of growing its own leaders.

Sir Nick stressed his scheme would not apply to the Army’s front-line fighting combat arms. Reservists are already being recruited in a similar way, and the military insists the strategy is paying off, with high calibre reservist recruits being attracted from the worlds of industry, government, academia and the public sector.

But the latest plan is believed to be the first time since the Second World War that non-soldiers have been boosted up the ranks in the regular Army. He said: “As an institution we are bottom fed. In other words we recruit people who are youngsters and then grow them through a career. I think that the modern way of working suggests that as we embrace a lot of the specialisms that we have got to embrace, we are going to have to offer different career structures.

“I suspect that nearly as much as 30 per cent of the Army will be specialists in the future. How we supply those specialist career streams, often probably with lateral entry and maybe sharing people with industry because all of us are struggling with the so-called science, technology, engineering and maths skills, is something we will have to think about in the future.” Army sources suggested the first recruitment was likely to be to ranks such as captain, major or non-commissioned officers, but in future it could extend to positions as senior as brigadier or higher.

A similar proposal in the US Army already suggests direct hire as high up as colonel.

The positions would skip basic training and weapons drills and not be held accountable to basic fitness standards. Sir Nick said the Army was “probably a year or two away” from the move, which would need profound changes to careers structures and the way it recognises status. The Army may need to bring in new senior non-commissioned officer ranks.

He said: “We may need to adopt a more American-style approach. They have these people called chief warrant officers. A chief warrant officer is typically a pilot or avionics officer who moves up through this different system of status and I think that the British Army is going to have to think about doing that sort of thing as well.”