By Alistair Bunkall, Defence Correspondent
General Sir David Richards will formally stand down as Chief of the Defence Staff later today.
In a ceremony on Horse Guards Parade in Westminster he will hand over to his successor General Sir Nicholas Houghton.
Houghton will become the professional Head of Britain's Armed Forces and the senior military advisor to the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary.
General Houghton served as General Richards' deputy for a period of time before being appointed to the role.
Richards has been Chief of the Defence Staff since October 2010. During his tenure he has overseen a large-scale overhaul of the UK's Armed Forces including redundancies across all three services.
Houghton's primary task will be to oversee the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan.
General Sir Nicholas Houghton will take over That process will near completion at the end of 2014. There is also expected to be a fourth and final tranche of redundancies announced early next year.
This will be concentrated on the Army whose number are set to fall to 82,000 personnel.
In a direct response to that, he will be involved in attempts to expand the Army Reserve from its current size of around 18,000 soldiers to 30,000 - a cornerstone policy for the Army's future.
He will also have equipment issues to address: can the UK afford both the new aircraft carriers that are under construction? And how many F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets will be eventually bought to fly off the carriers?
The question of whether the UK should renew its nuclear deterrent also needs addressing - a decision on that will be made in 2016.
Houghton's appointment is unusual in the respect that both he and his predecessor General Richards have both had careers in the Army.
The role typically rotates between the three forces in turn. But his appointment has been widely welcomed and he has been described as politically astute.
He has publicly backed the Ministry of Defence's tough decisions to balance its budget. Houghton is not expected to be a controversial Chief.
He is an Oxford graduate and served in the Green Howards. He was the senior British Commander in Iraq in 2006.
In that role he was responsible for the withdrawal of troops from the country; vital experience for the job he now faces in Afghanistan.
To maintain continuity and to help Houghton settle into his new role, General Sir Peter Wall the Head of the British Army will stay on in the job despite the expectation he was going to leave later this year.
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