Tulliallan and Jackton
Initial Training

Initial training is the last step between your offer and life as a constable on a shift. Police Scotland's police officer page sets it out in one sentence: "The overall initial training period has been extended to 18 weeks. This consists of 1 week at a regional training centre, 15 weeks at either the Scottish Police College (Tulliallan) or the Training and Recruitment Centre (East Kilbride), followed by a further 2 weeks at a regional training centre."

• Length: 18 weeks, from the intake that started on 12 January 2026.
• Sites for the main 15 weeks: Tulliallan (the Scottish Police College) or Jackton (the Training and Recruitment Centre in East Kilbride).
• Intakes: ten a year since March 2024, according to the Scottish Police Authority. The dates for 2026/27 are not published.
• Pay: £34,001 a year from appointment, the first point on the constable scale.
• After training: the rest of a two-year probation, most of it in response policing.

Police Scotland describes three phases. It does not publish a week-by-week syllabus, so the table below sticks to what it does say: how long each phase is and where it happens.

Phase 1: one week at a regional training centre

Your first week is not at Tulliallan or Jackton but at a regional training centre. Police Scotland does not name the regional centres on its recruitment pages or say which one you will attend. In practice, expect your offer paperwork or joining instructions to tell you.

Phase 2: 15 weeks at Tulliallan or East Kilbride

The main block is 15 weeks at one of the two national sites. Police Scotland's fitness assessment page explains that the 5.4 bleep test is there to check you are ready for Officer Safety Training, "where you learn to protect yourself and others", so expect that to be part of your training. Beyond that, Police Scotland does not publish the course content, timetable or how it is assessed. We have not filled the gap with guesses.

Phase 3: two more weeks at a regional training centre

The last 2 weeks are back at a regional training centre before you deploy to your division. Police Scotland's December 2025 news story, headlined "More than 130 officers get ready to deploy to communities", is about recruits at exactly this point.

To make the 18 weeks concrete, here are the milestones for the first 18-week intake, which Police Scotland said started on 12 January 2026. We have assumed the weeks run back to back from a Monday with no course breaks, because Police Scotland does not publish breaks or exact phase dates. Treat the dates as our arithmetic, not Police Scotland's timetable.

The useful point is the shape: about four months of training, then working in your division for the rest of your first two years. Police Scotland describes probation as 2 years, most of it in response policing, but does not say exactly how the training weeks count towards it. Your first pay rise comes on completing one year's service as a constable, which is well after training ends.

Police Scotland announced in December 2025 that initial training would be extended to 18 weeks from the intake starting on 12 January 2026. Before that it was 16 weeks.

If you read an older guide or forum post that says Police Scotland training is 12, 14 or 16 weeks, it is out of date. Police Scotland's current police officer page gives 18 weeks. Its announcement did not set out week-by-week what the extra two weeks contain, so we do not either.

Tulliallan is the Scottish Police College and one of the two places where you can spend the 15-week main block. What our sources say about it:

• It is named on Police Scotland's police officer page as one of the two 15-week training sites.
• The Scottish Police Authority's June 2024 paper describes the Tulliallan intakes as residential.
• Police Scotland's graduation parades take place there, including those in its December 2025 news story.
• Transferees from other UK forces do their 3-week course at the Scottish Police College and locally.

Residential training means living at the college during the week for the 15-week block. If you have children, caring responsibilities, a second job or a long journey, this is the part of the process to plan for earliest. Police Scotland's pages do not publish the weekend arrangements, accommodation rules or costs, so ask before you accept an offer if any of these matter to you.

Jackton is Police Scotland's Training and Recruitment Centre in East Kilbride, named on vacancies as the "Force Training and Recruitment Centre Jackton". It is also one of the venues listed for recruit fitness tests in Police Scotland's FOI answer on fitness test results.

The Scottish Police Authority's June 2024 paper says a non-residential initial training course started at Jackton on 15 July 2024, with 55 recruits per intake running alongside the Tulliallan intakes. The paper says this was done "recognising the barriers to a residential training programme". For many people that is the difference between being able to join and not: a parent, a carer or someone who cannot be away from home all week.

Police Scotland does not publish how it decides which site a recruit attends, whether you can state a preference or whether it depends on where you will be posted. You give three posting location preferences on the eligibility form, but that is about where you work afterwards, not where you train. Our divisions and postings guide covers the posting side.

If one site would be much harder for you, say so early. Police Scotland's reasonable adjustments process covers circumstances that would otherwise disadvantage you in the selection process. The recruitment team is the right place to ask about training arrangements.

The Scottish Police Authority's June 2024 paper is the best published source on intakes. It says Police Scotland moved from quarterly intakes of about 200 recruits to ten intakes a year from March 2024.

Ten intakes a year means a course starts in most months, which is good news if you pass selection: you are less likely to wait a whole quarter for a place. But Police Scotland does not publish the 2026/27 intake dates or how many places each intake has, so nobody outside Police Scotland can tell you which intake you will join.

The current Police Officer vacancy on Police Scotland's portal closes on 31 March 2027. Our application timeline to 31 March 2027 and the free recruitment timeline planner help you plan around the parts that are fixed.

The fitness standard does not stop mattering once you have an offer. Three published rules apply around training:

• The 5.4 bleep test checks that you are ready for Officer Safety Training, where you learn to protect yourself and others.
• If more than 6 months pass between your fitness test and being given a start date, you take another fitness test before any formal offer.
• Police Scotland may ask you to do an additional fitness test at any point in the recruitment process.

After probation, Police Scotland's FOI answer says officers in Scotland "are not fitness tested after they have completed their two year probation". It does not describe any test during training or probation in that answer, so we do not say there is or is not one. The safe plan is to arrive fitter than 5.4 and stay that way.

Our Police Scotland fitness test guide explains the 5.4 standard and how to train for it.

Your appointment as a constable only takes effect once you make a declaration before a sheriff, summary sheriff or justice of the peace, under section 10 of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012. Since June 2025 the wording commits you to discharge the duties of the office "with fairness, candour, integrity, diligence and impartiality", to follow the Code of Ethics for Policing in Scotland and to "uphold fundamental human rights and accord equal respect to all people, according to law".

Police Scotland does not publish exactly when in the 18 weeks the declaration is made. What matters for you is that the values you wrote about in your application (fairness, integrity, respect and human rights) are the same ones you formally commit to. Our values and Code of Ethics guide explains them.

A decision table built only from what is published. Where nothing is published, the honest answer is to ask.

The 18-week course is for new police officers. Other routes into Police Scotland have shorter or tailored training:

Transferees are serving officers in a recognised Home Office force in England or Wales, PSNI or BTP with at least three years' service and no outstanding complaints. Rejoiners are former Police Scotland officers who completed probation; anyone else who left policing applies as a new officer and does the full 18 weeks. Details are in our transferees and rejoiners guide.

If you are comparing a Scottish application with an English or Welsh one, the training model is one of the biggest differences. England and Wales details here come from our audited comparison guide, not from Police Scotland.

In short: Scotland trains every new officer on the same 18-week course and then a two-year probation, with no academic qualification attached. Full details are in Police Scotland vs England and Wales recruitment.

The fixed rules around the offer and training fit together like this. The right-hand column is what Police Scotland does not publish, so you know what to ask.

The six-month fitness rule is the one that can catch people out between passing everything and starting. If your start date is a long way off, keep training so a retest is a formality.

After the final 2 weeks at a regional training centre you deploy to your division. Police Scotland says the probationary period lasts 2 years, with most of that time spent working in response policing. It adds that probation "requires full focus and dedication to training and operational duties".

• Police Scotland probation: what the two years involve and what changes after.
• Divisions and postings: the 13 local policing divisions and the Islands Allowance.
• Part-time and flexible working: what Police Scotland offers and what it does not publish for new officers.