RN is significantly bigger. Also I must state that even though Royal navy is much bigger both in quality / tonnage and qty but still there was quite a criticism on RN for exactly this matter, critics were saying more admirals then ships. Because those critics were comparing how big RN used to be at one point with almost same number of officers. But still look at RN today, they have nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines, they have 2 massive 80K ton aircraft carriers, various destroyers and many frigates. The smallest of those vessel is still bigger or equivalent to our largest warship. RN is strategic / global reach / blue water navy. Ours is limited to regional effect. So really we cannot compare with RN.
I don't want to dig the past and deals of the 90s. This was the real & genuine problem with the navy even when there was no nuclear angle, not even 6 ocean worthy warships but still positions were occupied at highest level with all perks. We can easily expand the fleet with current number of admirals. Bloated number of admirals have nothing to do with fleet size anyways. Not all admirals are related with operations anyways. For-example, for admin for housing & welfare, for Public relations etc there are three separate admirals who lead those branches. and this is just for example which were at top of my head. The operations are majorly under one admiral. So whole warfare business is primarily under one. In another view you are giving same value to whole fleet vs the PR vs the housing and other stuff. This shows our priorities. A fighting force needs to show its priorities with its organisational structure.
I don't understand why we need an admiral for PR? Its the culture that needs to change within forces.