There is a substantial  trade-off between initial technology and subsequent manpower costs. Replacing the median crewmember would save £1.2 million - that is, if the net present values of all individual crewmembers’ lifetime compensations were ordered from highest to lowest, removing the middle person in the distribution would save  £1.2 million!

Key user requirements are substantially higher availability to the fleet and great flexibility in ship employment - and the CVF's must be equally effectively in combat missions or delivering humanitarian aid.  Achieving this flexibility, and with a smaller crew, implies that more automation will be needed in operating the ship's systems.  This has posed all sorts of challenges, for example if a trivial mechanical failure (e.g. to a fresh water distillation plant) could potentially stop the ship fulfilling its task due to lack of any on-board expertise to make a repair, then that's unacceptable. 

It was originally hoped by the RN that the normal peace time "lean-manned" CVF crew complement (including airgroup) would be similar to the Invincible class ships.  Thus in 1999, the two competing contractor teams were encouraged to aim for a crew of about 600 (excluding airgroup), similar to the order of today's Invincible-class ships.   Since 2003, the (now joint) Aircraft Carrier Team has also had to develop appropriate schemes of complement and identify training requirements, taking into account the RN's new TOPMAST manning structure.  TOPMAST will add approximately 30% to a CVF's complement in order to ensure that the ship maintains Operational Capability with a full crew when frequently deployed on operations, while still meeting Harmony targets and crew leave periods.

In October 2002 BAE said that their CVF design would have about 600 crew, with embarked squadron and Command staffs taking up to 1400 personnel, and the Thales design chosen in Jan 2003 had 605 crew, so manning was presumably not a major discriminator during the evaluation process.

The following table compares current manning on HMS Ark Royal, with Thales' estimate in late 2002, and the RN's ‘Print of the Planning Complement on 23 January 03’, the later was the first estimate of the CVF complement modelled on the CVS; it did not include the complement necessary to support TOPMAST harmony rules.

When estimating the CVF Complement, RAND Europe in a study for the MOD points out that the Royal Navy’s complementing process takes technology as a given and uses inherited assumptions about hours of work and mix of trades and rates. The process may be regarded as a review and assessment by an honest, experienced broker. It does not produce any recommendations for reorganising work or for adding technology, materials, or equipment. With no systematic evaluation of the complement-reducing potential of evolving technologies and work processes, decisions in the current complementing system may be overly influenced by culture and by outdated policies and practices.  The Aircraft Carrier Team (originally Thales UK) in contrast, appears to have taken a zero-based approach to complementing. It has estimated the work to be done and computed the number of manpower slots necessary to accomplish it.  Thales’ complementing process yields a distribution of labour that differed substantially from the Royal Navy’s breakdown for the CVF.

The MoD has also given examples of how manpower efficiencies are being achieved: lesser demands on the ships[?]; implementing modern design and build techniques, a highly mechanised weapon handling system; and a large Replenishment-at-Sea system to reduce refill times.  Other features mentioned include an arrangement for electrical shore supply that requires around three cable connections compared to the 100-plus currently required and – a first for the Royal Navy – and an auto tensioning mooring system that reduces the need for constant monitoring and adjustment of berthing hawsers.

As further complementing work is done, the following points should be kept in mind:

•  A principal, persisting goal must be observed. Minimising whole life costs (WLCs) and minimising crew size, for example, will each result in a different complement.

•  Some CVF systems will be inherited from the current Invincible class. These systems might bring inefficient manning with them.

•  Ambitious plans to cut manpower by investing in technology can be impeded by constraints on the up-front acquisition funding.

• Operational commanders may be reluctant to accept smaller complements because they would reduce the margin for error in situations threatening ship safety.

In order to reach the target crew size, the original "Alpha" CVF design automated as large a proportion of the normally manpower intensive systems as possible.  However from mid-2003 the CVF IPT and Aircraft Carrier Alliance took a very hard look at the cost-effectiveness of some of these high-tech systems.  For example, in the late 2002 design the weapons-handling role was almost entirely automated and required only 20 weapon handlers (roughly the same as the number of bombs to handle), compared with the 250 of a USN Nimitz class carrier!  However, some of the automatic systems were lost in the cost trade-off process, according to BMT's Simon Knight: "There will certainly be automation in some form. In the past evolution the magazine was fully automated. The preparation of the weapon was also semi-automated. We will now look at what is manpower intensive and what a robot could best do." 

Some reports in mid/late 2003 indicated that the likely crew size had crept up from 600 to nearer 800, with an even larger increase in airgroup numbers.

In early 2005 it was confirmed that the crew would be 1400 , however it was not clear whether  this included full allowance for  maximum size airgroup - its been estimated that 36 F-35 fighters plus a few helicopters could easily require 800 or more airgroup personnel.

The standard of accommodation on the CVF's is likely to be revelation to anyone who experienced the inadequate and over-crowded accommodation of RN carriers prior to the appearance of HMS Invincible in 1980 

In December 2005 it was revealed that 1800 berths would be provided in total, while the maximum needs of the crew and joint airgroup was expected to be 1500.  There would thus be an excess of accommodation, this will allow for the transport of specialist teams and their equipment to carry out a variety of missions - whether military, para-military, or disaster relief.  The extra accommodation could also be used for an embarked military detachment (from a Band, to a company of RM's and upwards - complete with supporting weapons and equipment), sea training classes (e.g. RNR, BRNC midshipmen, etc.), and for humanitarian purposes (e.g. accommodating evacuees and refugees).  Another addition may be an RN command staff, the 1* COMUKTG and 2* COMUKMARFOR commands include about 30 and 70 personnel respectively, while embarking a Joint Force Headquarters (JFHQ) Afloat will mean 120+ extra personnel.

Accommodation will conform to the standard adopted for the Type 45 destroyer, and its claimed that this is "luxurious" compared with the preceding Invincible-class.  The new carriers will have double the CVS Invincible's area allowance for crew accommodation, dining and. recreation area's, but with only a slightly increased complement.  As a result, instead of large mess decks, Junior Rates will have 6 berth cabins; Senior Rates will have 2 berth or single cabins, while Officers will have shared (if under training) or individual cabins.  All the 600 or so cabins will be unisex, giving 'Drafty' great flexibility on the ratio of male and female crew members. It's expected that about 10% of the ships crew will be female and the accommodation and "hotel" facilities will be designed with this taken in to consideration.

In January 2007, French sources said that French PA2 (aka CVF FR) would carry 1720 crew & airgroup, and the UK variant typically 300 less.

In April 2007 the CVF IPT Team Leader, Rear Admiral Bob Love, said that the ships would have a complement of about 1500 - maximum 1650, with 500 cabins in a mixture of 1,2, & 6 berths.  He said "It is also worth highlighting the size of the Ships Company, which for this size of vessel is very small, but which does therefore rely on a greater degree of automation than would be the case in a US carrier ... An example of that automation is the Weapon Handling System which is at the heart of the Sortie Generation Rate and without which the ship would require an additional 100+ sailors to do the same job manually."  It appears that a few cabins might have been sacrificed since 2005 to meet other volume needs.

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