It's ok all of these contract companies paying a pittance and relying on ex Services folks using their pensions to bolster their wages, but that was all well and good when you had a Service that was large enough to generate a steady flow of retiring service personnel.
The problem as I see it is as more and more of the Services get farmed out by the UK PLC to contracted companies, "because it's cheaper" and the Services shrink accordingly, that flow reduces to a trickle and with second time around retirements, these companies will suddenly find their supply of cheap labour gone, that then will force costs up and contract prices in line with that. The trouble is the Service will then be screwed as their skill base and facilities to do it themselves will be long gone, so they will end up having to bite the bullet and absorb those costs.....