British Army other ranks rank insignia The term used to refer to all ranks below officers is " other ranks " ( abbreviated " ORs " ) . It includes warrant officer s , non - commissioned officer s ( " NCOs " ) and ordinary soldiers with the rank of private or regimental equivalent . Officers may , in speaking , distinguish themselves from those " " in the ranks " " . Variants . Royal Artillery . Royal Artillery other ranks include lance bombardier and bombardier instead of lance corporal and corporal . Foot Guards and Honourable Artillery Company . In the Foot Guards and Honourable Artillery Company : Household Cavalry . The Household Cavalry maintains the old cavalry tradition of having no rank of sergeant , which was originally an infantry rank only . This is allegedly because the word " sergeant " is descended from " servant " and such a title was considered inappropriate for Household troops . It has its own peculiar set of insignia and ranks with the following equivalents : Similarly , warrant officer appointments are different , with , for example , " regimental corporal major " being used in place of regimental sergeant major . Uniquely , non - commissioned officers and warrant officers of the Household Cavalry do not wear any insignia on their full dress uniforms ( although officers do ) . Rank is indicated by a system of aiguillette s . Cavalry regiments . In several cavalry regiments including the 1st The Queen ' s Dragoon Guards and the Queen ' s Royal Hussars , NCOs holding the rank of lance corporal wear two stripes . Full corporals are distinguished by the addition of a cypher above their two stripes in dress uniforms . Staff sergeants in an appointment as squadron quartermaster sergeant in the cavalry , sometimes wear four stripes with a crown and are referred to as " sergeant major " . The term " mister " is confined to WO2s . Origins and history . The chevrons worn by many non - commissioned officers are based on heraldic devices and their current use for NCOs originates from the time of the Napoleonic Wars in 1802 . As today , sergeant s wore three chevrons , point downwards , on the upper arm , and corporal s wore two , with sergeant - major s and quarter - master - sergeants then having four . Lance corporal , at the time not a rank but an appointment historically known as " chosen man " and carrying extra pay for privates holding it , were given a single chevron a few years later , and later in the century the lance - sergeant appeared , wearing three chevrons . The infantry rank of colour sergeant was created in 1813 as a reward for senior sergeants with one allowed per company . He was allowed to wear a badge consisting of a regimental colour supported by two crossed swords . The Royal Artillery had the special rank of bombardier below the corporal , and both he and the acting bombardier wore one chevron . The Royal Engineers and Army Ordnance Corps also had an additional rank of second corporal , who wore one chevron . On full - dress tunics , badges in white or gold lace were worn only on the right arm , but on service dress jackets , badges in worsted embroidery were worn on both arms . In February 1918 the acting bombardier was renamed lance - bombardier , and the full bombardier gained a second chevron in 1920 replacing the rank of corporal in the RA . Second corporals also disappeared at that time ( second corporal had been an actual rank , whereas lance - corporal was a private acting in the rank of corporal ) . The pre - war infantry rank of colour sergeant had generally given way to the ranks of company sergeant - major and quartermaster - sergeant in 1914 when the four - company organisation was introduced . Both of these ranks , their squadron and battery equivalents , and staff - sergeants in other arms , wore three chevrons and a crown , although in 1915 company , battery , squadron and troop sergeant - majors became warrant officers class II ( by Army Order 70 ) and thereafter wore a single large crown , without any chevrons , on each forearm . Note the designation of warrant officer classes was in Roman rather than Arabic numerals until the latter half of the 20th century . Regimental quartermaster - sergeants wore four chevrons on the lower sleeve , point upwards , with an eight pointed star above , but adopted the crown when they too became warrant officers class II in 1915 . In their case , however , the crown was surrounded by a wreath . Regimental sergeant - majors , who before the Boer War had worn four chevrons with a crown , were given in 1902 the badge of a single large crown on the lower arm , but adopted a small version of the Royal arms in its place in 1915 when they became warrant officers class I . There were also certain senior grades of warrant officer , peculiar to the specialist branches , which ranked above regimental sergeant - majors . These were the conductors of the Army Ordnance Corps and the first - class staff sergeant - majors of the Army Service Corps and the Army Pay Corps . They also wore a large crown , surrounded by a wreath , on the lower arm , although in 1918 this was replaced by the Royal Arms within a wreath . The RA also had its master gunners in three classes , but these were technical specialists and not normally seen in the field . The Royal Arms within a wreath is the badge of rank for a conductor , the most senior of all WO1 appointments , confined to the Royal Logistic Corps and held by fewer than twenty people as of 2004 . From 1938 , there was also a rank of warrant officer class III . The only appointments held by this rank were platoon sergeant major , troop sergeant major and section sergeant major . The WOIII wore a crown on his lower sleeve . The rank was placed in suspension in 1940 and no new appointments were made , but it was never officially abolished . From 1938 to 1947 all WOII ranks wore the crown in wreath rank now worn by regimental quartermaster sergeants . The grades of lance - sergeant and lance - corporal were not strictly ranks , but were appointments , held by selected corporals and privates , and usually carrying extra pay . The appointment was made by the man ' s commanding officer and could be taken away by him for disciplinary reasons , unlike full sergeants and corporals who could only be demoted by order of a court martial . It is only since 1961 that lance - corporal has been a separate rank in its own right , and the appointment of lance - sergeant was discontinued in 1946 , except in the Foot Guards and Honourable Artillery Company ( and its equivalent , lance - corporal of horse , in the Household Cavalry ) . Sergeant or serjeant . The spelling " serjeant " is sometimes seen . This was in fact the official spelling , even during and after World War I – though interestingly not in the Royal Air Force – and appeared in such publications as King ' s Regulations and the Pay Warrant , which defined the various ranks . In common usage the modern spelling " sergeant " was already more usual , as for instance in the volumes of the Official History which began to appear in the 1920s . Serjeant - at - Arms is a title still held by members of the security staff in the Houses of Parliament . Also , in the newly - amalgamated infantry regiment The Rifles ( as successor to The Light Infantry , which also used it ) , the spelling of serjeant is held with the ' J ' in place of the ' G ' . This is currently the only British Army regiment using the alternative spelling .