Police officer resignations: 4,751 FTE in the year to March 2026, what the figures show

The Home Office's annual workforce release, Police workforce, England and Wales: 31 March 2026, was published on 22 July 2026. It counts everyone who left the 43 territorial forces in the 12 months to 31 March 2026, excluding officers who transferred to another force. These are the latest official figures on how officers leave.

The headline numbers

9,240 police officers left in the year (full-time equivalent, FTE). That is a leaver rate of 6.3%, up from 6.0% the year before and below the peak of 6.6% in the year to March 2023.

Reason for leaving	Officers (FTE)
Voluntary resignation	4,751
Normal retirement	3,487
Medical retirement	482
Dismissal or contract termination	459
Death	60
All leavers	9,240

Voluntary resignations made up 51.4% of all officer leavers. Normal retirement, which used to be the main way officers left, accounted for 37.7%.

Resignations are more than double their pre-pandemic level

In the year to March 2020, 2,363 officers resigned. In the year to March 2021 it dipped to 1,996, a year the Home Office says was possibly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the year to March 2026 it was 4,751: more than double the 2020 figure (up 101% by our calculation) and up 138% on 2021. The total is slightly up on last year's 4,668 but below the 5,058 who resigned in the year to March 2024.

Because the size of the workforce changes from year to year, the Home Office also gives a resignation rate: resignations as a share of officers in post at the start of the year. It was 3.2% in the year to March 2026, the same as the year before and below the peak of 3.4% in the year to March 2024. So the share of officers resigning has levelled off, even though the number resigning is still far higher than before the pandemic.

Most resigners are early in their career

The release also counts leavers by length of service, using headcount rather than FTE (9,426 officer leavers on that basis). Of the 4,877 officers who resigned on that count, 2,956 (60.6%) had less than five years' service. 822 resigned in their first year.

That share has been falling, though the Home Office says some forces have had problems extracting length of service data, which is likely to skew it towards shorter service. It says the figures should be treated with caution but give a reasonable picture at national level. The Home Office puts it at 66.7% in the year to March 2025. In the year to March 2024, the first year this was collected, it was 72.1% by our calculation from the length of service open data (3,714 of 5,151 resigners). More of the officers resigning now have five years' service or more.

Police staff and PCSOs

The release also covers other parts of the workforce. 7,612 police staff and designated officers (FTE) left in the year, a leaver rate of 9.3%. 949 PCSOs (FTE) left, a leaver rate of 13.0%, the highest of any paid worker group.

What the figures do not tell you

The workforce release records how officers left, not why. It does not say whether people resigned for pay, workload, family reasons or a better job elsewhere. Other sources, such as surveys of officers, try to answer that question and use different methods, so they are not directly comparable with these counts. The Home Office also counts an officer who leaves to become a member of police staff as a voluntary resignation, so not every resigner leaves policing altogether.

If you are thinking about leaving

Resigning is a big decision and the money side is easy to get wrong. The most common worry is the pension. If you resign, the pension you have built up is not lost: it is usually kept as a deferred pension that is paid later and rises with inflation in the meantime. What you give up is the pension you would have built in future years. You usually also lose the right to take your pension at your scheme's normal pension age without a reduction. A deferred 2015 scheme pension is normally paid in full from State Pension Age rather than 60. Resigning with 1987 or 2006 scheme service gives up the immediate pension you could reach by staying and fixes those benefits on your pay at leaving. If you have less than two years of qualifying service, different rules can apply (usually a refund of contributions), so check before you hand in notice.

Our leaving the police hub covers notice periods, pension, references and next steps in order. If you are near retirement rather than resigning, our guide to retire and rejoin explains how returning after retirement works. And if you are building a civilian CV, the police to civilian CV translator turns police roles and terms into language civilian employers recognise.