Defence and aid statistics: MOD, NATO, FCDO, OECD and Home Office data

UK defence and aid statistics are official figures published mainly by the Ministry of Defence (spending and armed forces numbers), the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (foreign aid), and the Home Office (terrorism arrests and Prevent). NATO and the OECD publish internationally comparable figures for defence spending and aid. Fact-checkers use them to test claims about defence budgets, the size of the forces, the aid budget, support to Ukraine, arms exports and counter-terrorism.

Covers: UK · Release calendar

What it publishes

MOD Departmental Resources: annual defence spending by type, in cash and real terms, with comparisons to other departments.
Quarterly Service Personnel Statistics: the strength, intake and outflow of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, Army and RAF, regulars and reserves.
NATO's annual defence expenditure tables: spending as a share of GDP, per capita and on equipment for every ally, on a common definition.
FCDO Statistics on International Development: UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) by department, country, sector and channel, and the ODA to GNI ratio.
OECD Development Assistance Committee data comparing aid from donor countries on the same rules.
Export Control Joint Unit licensing statistics: export licences issued, refused and revoked by destination and goods type.
Home Office counter-terrorism statistics: terrorism-related arrests, charges, convictions, people in custody and stop and search in Great Britain, and Prevent referrals in England and Wales.
MOD annual reports to Parliament on the nuclear programme, including Dreadnought submarine costs.

Key datasets

MOD Departmental Resources
Defence spending by budget type and category, equipment and R&D spending, external income and consultancy, consistent with the MOD annual accounts.
Updated: Annual, in the autumn
Quarterly Service Personnel Statistics
UK Armed Forces strength, joiners and leavers by service, with full-time trained strength and reserves, at the start of each quarter.
Updated: Quarterly
NATO defence expenditure
Annual tables for all allies from 2014, with the latest year estimated, on NATO's definition. PDF and Excel.
Updated: Annual, usually around the NATO summit
Statistics on International Development
Provisional (spring) and final (autumn) UK ODA spending, by department, recipient country, sector and channel, with the ODA to GNI ratio.
Updated: Twice a year
Development Tracker
Project-level budgets and spending for UK aid programmes by country and sector, from IATI data.
Updated: Updated monthly by departments
UK support to Ukraine factsheet
Government summary of military, non-military and export finance support committed to Ukraine.
Updated: Updated irregularly
Strategic export controls licensing statistics
Licences for military and dual-use goods by destination, from 2008, with links to the annual report and Israel management information.
Updated: Quarterly
Counter-terrorism statistics
Terrorism-related arrests and outcomes, custody and stop and search in Great Britain since 2001.
Updated: Moving from quarterly to six-monthly
Prevent programme statistics
Referrals to Prevent and Channel cases in England and Wales by age, sector and type of concern since April 2015.
Updated: Annual
Defence Nuclear Enterprise annual updates
MOD reports on the Dreadnought programme, warheads and nuclear infrastructure, including cost estimates and spend to date.
Updated: Annual
Veterans: Census 2021 and 2022
Number and characteristics of armed forces veterans in Great Britain from the England and Wales and Scotland censuses.
Updated: One-off, after each census

APIs and downloads

MOD statistics tables
Each MOD release has ODS or Excel tables; there is no API. Spreadsheets are free and need no registration.
Export control licensing database
Custom reports on licensing decisions by destination, rating and period, downloadable as spreadsheets; registration required.
OECD Data Explorer
SDMX-based data explorer and API for OECD DAC aid statistics, downloadable as CSV or Excel. No key needed.
NATO defence expenditure 2026 tables
PDF of the latest NATO tables; Excel versions are linked from NATO's defence expenditure page.

When it publishes

MOD, FCDO and Home Office statistics are pre-announced on the GOV.UK research and statistics calendar and published at 9:30am. Personnel statistics come out quarterly; provisional aid figures in April and final ones in the autumn; NATO's tables usually appear around its summer summit. The terrorism powers release is moving to a six-monthly cycle.

How to use it to check a claim

For a defence spending figure, identify whether it is the MOD budget, total MOD cash, or NATO-definition spending, and whether it is cash or real terms.
For percentage of GDP claims, use NATO's tables for international comparisons and note that the latest year is an estimate that is revised.
For armed forces numbers, quote the exact measure (total strength, full-time trained strength, regulars only) and the date of the quarterly release.
For aid, check whether the figure is provisional or final, and whether it includes in-donor refugee costs or multilateral contributions.
For country aid claims, look up bilateral spending in the final Statistics on International Development tables and project detail on Development Tracker.
For arms export claims, remember licensing statistics record permission to export, not completed sales.
For terrorism arrests, check how many relate to Palestine Action since its proscription in July 2025, which the Home Office now shows separately.

Common mistakes

Comparing UK national defence spending with other countries' NATO figures, which use a different definition.
Treating multi-year commitments to Ukraine as money already spent in one year.
Reading licence values as the value of arms actually delivered.
Comparing the aid budget across years without noting the switch from 0.7% to 0.5% and the planned 0.3% of GNI, or GNI revisions.
Describing Prevent referrals as people suspected of terrorism; a referral is a safeguarding concern and most lead to no Channel support.

Where are official UK defence statistics published?

The Ministry of Defence publishes them on GOV.UK under its statistics page. The main series are MOD Departmental Resources for spending, Quarterly Service Personnel Statistics for forces numbers, and separate releases on the civilian workforce, deaths, health and veterans. Each comes with downloadable tables and a background quality report.

What is ODA?

Official Development Assistance is the internationally agreed definition of aid set by the OECD Development Assistance Committee. It covers government money given or lent on concessional terms to promote the welfare and development of countries on the DAC list, including some costs of hosting refugees in the donor country. The UK reports its ODA through the FCDO's Statistics on International Development.

Why do UK and NATO defence spending figures differ?

NATO uses a common definition for all allies that includes some items outside the MOD budget, such as parts of intelligence spending and war pensions, and measures payments in a fiscal year against NATO's own GDP figures. The MOD's Departmental Resources uses UK budget definitions. Both are official; they answer different questions.

Questions answered using this source

Links checked 2026-10-13. This page describes what the source publishes and gives no verdict on any claim.