SUMMARY

Overview

The engineer support for the Army is provided by the Corps of Royal Engineers (RE). Known as Sappers, the Royal Engineers are one of the Army’s three Combat Support Arms, and are trained as fighting soldiers combat engineers and artisan tradesmen as well as holding specialist qualifications within EOD, Search and Diving. The Corps of Royal Engineers performs highly specialised combat and non-combat tasks, and is active all over the world in conflict and during peace. The Corps has no battle honours, its motto 'ubique' (everywhere), signifies that it has taken part in every battle fought by the British Army in all parts of the world. 

FORCE STRUCTURE

As of 2011, the RE had a regular Army establishment of some 9,528 personnel and a strength of 9,640 personnel. These figures are for UK trained regular army (including Full Time Reserve Service Personnel) and exclude Gurkhas, and mobilised reservists.

This large corps comprises 17 regular regiments and 5 TA regiments - presently organised as follows:
 

Queen's Gurkha Engineers (QGE) are held within 36 Engineer Regiment (Search), within 69 Gurkha Field Squadron (Search) and 70 Gurkha Field Squadron (Search). 

The listing of Regiments by role is as follows:

There are also a number of independent engineer squadrons in the UK, as shown in the next table:

Territorial Army Royal Engineer regiments and independent units are shown below:

Contingents of Royal Engineers (including Volunteer Reservists) are likely to be deployed in all combat zones, including most recently Afghanistan, Iraq, Balkans, Democratic Republic of Congo, Georgia, Liberia and Sierra Leone.