Women could serve in elite combat units including the SAS, after David Cameron announced he will remove the ban on women in close ground fighting roles in the British military.

Female soldiers will be able to join armoured units by the end of this year and apply for all close ground combat jobs by the end of 2018, after service chiefs last month unanimously backed the move.

The historic change to hundreds of years of British military tradition follows two years of study of whether women are fit for the rigours of combat and whether they would undermine the Armed Forces fighting power.

The Prime Minister’s announcement at the Nato summit in Warsaw overturns current rules that women are banned from ground combat units “where the primary role is to close with and kill the enemy”.