Almost three-quarters (72%) of the job losses are through voluntary redundancy. The majority of the cuts (995) are to army personnel, with 55 leaving the RAF and 10 going from the navy. Those leaving voluntarily will go in December, with the rest staying until June 2015.
In January, the MoD predicted deeper cuts of around 1,505 staff as part of a plan to save £10.6 billion by 2021. But the Government claims this is the final round of cuts that have seen more than 12,130 service personnel lose their jobs since 2011.
Secretary of state for defence Philip Hammond claimed the cuts were necessary to address the "blackhole" in the 2010 defence budget.
“This final tranche of the redundancy scheme we introduced to rebalance our armed forces and address the black hole in the defence budget in 2010 allows greater certainty for military personnel going forward,” he said.
The cost saving programme will see Britain's armed forces contain fewer personnel than at any point in the past 200 years, with a hiring drive on reservists planned to make up the shortfall. By 2018 the regular army will have been reduced to 82,000, with 30,000 part-time frontline staff also on the payroll.
Amyas Morse, comptroller and auditor general of the National Audit Office, said both the Government and the army must understand the "significant risks" associated with the cost savings.
"Notably, the extent to which it is dependent on other major programmes and the risk that the shortfall in recruitment of new reserves will up the pressure on regular units," he said.
