A century-old scheme designed to prepare university students for military leadership roles is facing renewed questions over its value as defence spending comes under pressure.
The University Officer Training Corps (UOTC) was created six years before the First World War to develop a pipeline of future Army officers, while strengthening links between the military and the country’s universities.
The scheme quickly proved its worth, training around 20,000 officers who went on to lead soldiers on the front lines during the First World War. A further 30,000 to 50,000 officers were trained during the Second World War.
More than a century later, around 1,400 students join the programme each year. The UOTC operates through 15 units across 27 training locations, with dozens of universities involved.
Could the UOTC help the Army expand during a major war?
The UOTC’s contribution to national security is difficult to measure, but supporters argue its greatest value could be the pool of potential leaders it provides during a major conflict.
Army officers are trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where around 1,000 cadets graduate each year. Although there are plans to expand the academy, there are concerns it could struggle to meet the demands of a large-scale war.
Lieutenant Colonel Simon Pollitt, who leads the Yorkshire UOTC, told the i paper the scheme could allow the Army to increase its officer numbers quickly if required.
“We know that during conventional warfare, the standing Army is going to have a high attrition rate in the opening few months or weeks, and so it’s about how we generate the next wave,” he said.
“The UOTC was set up to generate a cohort of people where we’ve already invested in and their education that could be commissioned in a national emergency. By running this constant cadence, we know what we’re doing if we need to.”
However, university officer cadets do not have any military commitment under their contracts and cannot be called up unless they later join a regular or reserve military unit.
Last year, only 45 Army Reserve officers were commissioned through the UOTC.
Could UOTC graduates be called up in wartime?
Call-ups would only be issued as part of a wider mobilisation of forces, reports the i paper.
Pollitt said that if the country entered a large-scale war, UOTC graduates would already have valuable training that could help them move into leadership roles.
“If we’re going into a large-scale war, there will be some changes in policy, and there might be some form of conscription or similar,” he said.
“The point is that we’ve already invested a level of training in them, and that they’re already at a state that could mobilise.”
He said graduates could also play important roles away from the battlefield.
“There are also people that we need to run industry and other areas of defence that aren’t deploying,” Pollitt said.
“A lot of my students from Sheffield are in technical degrees, and they may end up being critical to the war effort in a different way than deploying.”
How many UOTC students go on to join the military?
The UOTC also helps recruit officers during peacetime, with around 40 per cent of participants later joining the regular forces or reserves.
Many trainees who take part say they are considering a military career.
The scheme was also designed to strengthen the relationship between universities and the armed forces, encourage greater understanding of defence issues and contribute to what Pollitt described as “a general national resilience”.
How much does the UOTC cost?
Supporters argue the UOTC is one of the cheaper military programmes, but it still requires significant staffing and funding.
The scheme is run by more than 400 military staff on part-time contracts, alongside more than 100 full-time military and civilian employees.
Students receive payment for their training, earning roughly £50 to £63 per day, which works out at around £1,600 per academic year.
With around 1,400 cadets joining each year, the overall cost runs into millions of pounds.
The debate comes as the Government faces pressure over defence spending, with Andy Burnham’s Government attempting to address a £4.7bn gap in military funding while other projects, including hospital, rail and housing schemes, face pressure as spending priorities are reviewed.
Why do supporters say the UOTC is important?
Sir Julian Brazier, a former minister for the reserves and reservist officer, said the scheme was vital to the UK’s ability to sustain a long-term conflict.
“If you are preparing for a national war, rather than a war of choice like Iraq or Afghanistan, the essence of sustainability is the ability to expand,” he told The i Paper.
“As the last Chief of the General Staff put it: professional armies start wars, citizen armies finish them.”
Brazier said producing officers was a greater challenge than training soldiers.
“You can train a soldier in basic skills in a very short space of time. In Ukraine, they take as little as eight weeks. But producing officers is much more difficult.”
He said countries including Australia and the United States had more options for officer training despite not relying on conscription.
“The whole of the expansion of the British Army, in the event of war, has a single point of potential failure, which is Sandhurst,” he said.
Brazier does not believe UOTC contracts should be changed to allow students to be automatically called up, arguing many would volunteer in a major conflict.
“Subjecting them to the idea that you can call them out for an operation short of total war, I think, is a bad idea,” he said.
“I think if there was a war, almost all of the good ones would volunteer anyway.”
Does the UOTC still serve its original purpose?
Paul O’Neill, a former RAF officer and Ministry of Defence official responsible for recruitment who is now a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the scheme remained popular within the military but questioned whether one of its original aims was outdated.
When the UOTC was created in the 1900s, only around 5 per cent of the population attended university, meaning graduates were likely to become future leaders and members of the country’s elite.
Today, that figure is around 50 per cent.
“If you’re lobbying for funding, having a group of influential people who believe in what you’re trying to achieve and who understand the threats that are being faced [is useful],” O’Neill said.
“It was very much about creating a favourable environment amongst those who would eventually go on to become elites within society and that, I don’t think, is any longer true.”
O’Neill said the UOTC still helped create greater awareness of defence issues among participants and their wider networks.
He said it could “play an important role in creating this whole of society approach and understanding of the role of defence and the risks facing the nation”.
The scheme also “generates talent and the nation’s human capital” even when participants do not join the military.
However, O’Neill believes the programme may need a clearer objective.
He suggested the UOTC could provide broader education with less focus on expensive military-specific training, allowing funds to support a larger number of participants.
“There is a potential role within this idea of homeland defence for the university units, which may or may not require them in uniform, but would give you a valuable role and potentially a better return on the investment,” he said.