Management

Space Force doesn’t know how many personnel it needs, watchdog finds

GAO found that the service hasn't established a process to accurately determine its personnel needs and doesn't have a workforce plan to guide future growth.

Anastasia Obis

July 22, 2026 6:36 pm

4 min read

As Space Force leaders argue that doubling the size of the newest branch of the military is a “national security necessity,” roughly 25% of the jobs within the service were unfilled in fiscal 2025, and the service lacks guidance for determining how many people it actually needs to accomplish its missions.

The Government Accountability Office found that the Space Force had filled only 13,509 of the approximately 18,000 positions it identified as necessary to carry out its missions in fiscal 2025, leaving nearly one-quarter of required positions unfilled.

The watchdog found that the service has not established a process to accurately determine its personnel needs and does not have a strategic workforce plan to guide future growth.

Workforce challenges, however, extend beyond overall staffing shortages — the Space Force is also struggling to retain cybersecurity and intelligence talent, increase its enlisted ranks and hire civilian personnel due to competition from the private sector as well as recent Defense Department policy changes.

The findings come as Space Force leaders push for significant growth amid increasing threats in the space domain and new mission demands, including support for the Pentagon’s ambitious Golden Dome missile defense system.

Space Force officials have previously said recruiting has been “phenomenal” and that the service currently has more people who want to join than it can accept. But the number of Guardians is still “insufficient for the missions we have been assigned,” Chief Master Sgt. of the Space Force John Bentivegna told lawmakers earlier this year.

In 2025, the service consisted of just over 10,000 uniformed Guardians and roughly 5,407 civilian employees, according to the GAO report. The Space Force, however, lost nearly 14% of its civilian workforce amid the Trump administration’s push to shrink the size of the federal workforce. Much of it came from Space Systems Command, the Space Force’s acquisition hub.

Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, who was tapped to become the third-ever Space Force chief of space operations, recently said the service is now trying to hire 100 civilians per month. According to its budget documents, the Space Force is seeking to significantly expand its civilian workforce, requesting 2,800 additional civilian positions in fiscal 2027 for a total of approximately 7,200 civilian roles.

But the watchdog found that filling civilian roles has been “more challenging than filling military positions due to private sector competition and recent DoD personnel policy changes.”

“Faced with civilian personnel reductions and the loss of planned civilian workforce growth, senior field command officials described an ongoing effort to manage these reductions by assessing and determining where their command can take risk, scale back or eliminate workload, and prioritize functions that are inherently governmental or military essential. For example, Space Systems Command leaders said they were prioritizing resources for critical functions but were pausing important noncritical functions such as workforce development activities. While the reallocation of resources helps address the most pressing mission needs, officials expect it to negatively affect growth and the development of future capabilities in the long term,” GAO said in the report.

The watchdog also found that as the service continues to grow, existing personnel requirement determinations “do not accurately reflect the total number and type of personnel needed to accomplish its missions.”

“Some units’ personnel requirements are based on legacy requirements from the former Air Force Space Command and other services’ space units,” GAO said in the report. “Officials from several squadrons that transitioned from the Air Force to the Space Force said their units are operating with personnel requirements that have not been reassessed and are outdated, given the changing workload resulting from recent mission growth. In addition, some Space Force units’ personnel requirements are based on a mix of analyses that are not consistently applied across the service.”

In addition, the Space Force does not accurately track the number of contractors, which “further limits determination of personnel requirements.”

“Without accurately and consistently tracking contractor personnel supporting the service, the Space Force cannot fully quantify its personnel requirements and determine its optimal workforce mix. This is especially critical as the Space Force leverages significant contractor personnel support,” GAO said.

The Space Force budget could see a major increase under President Donald Trump’s massive budget proposal — the White House requested $71 billion for the newest military branch for fiscal 2027.

“I would say that the $71.1 billion that the president has asked for is exactly what we need in a couple areas… The threat … I think that is the thing that is driving us… I believe that’s a possibility that [a major conflict] could start in space,” Schiess told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.