Top army officers are underpaid, an ex-military recruiter has claimed.

Following an Independent on Sunday report which claimed that the upper ranks of the army were receiving £18m in benefits packages, Jean Claude Hedouin, managing director of Ex-Mil recruitment, told Recruiter that senior officers as well as troops were underpaid.

Hedouin said: “Across the army, £18m is not going to buy an awful lot. You do not join the army to get rich. Troops are not leaving because of senior office pay packets. It is because the British government does not give a toss about the British Army. The Air Chief Marshall got a £15,000 pay rise, you get a managing director of a FTSE 500 company, he is on £2-£3m. They are underpaid like the rest of the army; everyone’s underpaid.”

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