Police Workforce
Statistics 2026

The short version: there were 145,886 FTE police officers in the 43 territorial forces on 31 March 2026, or 147,822 people. FTE is the Home Office's headline measure, because it counts hours worked rather than heads.

Police officer numbers by year, 2010 to 2026

The table picks out the turning points in the officer series: the 2010 starting level, the 2018 low, the 2024 peak and the two falls since. FTE figures are Home Office Table H3; headcount comes from the open data table.

The short version: every paid worker type fell between March 2025 and March 2026. Only police support volunteers rose, by 26.

The long-run shape is unusual

• Officer numbers (FTE) were 143,734 in March 2010 and fell every year to a low of about 122,400 in March 2018.
• They then rose for six years as recruitment for the Police Uplift Programme took off, peaking at 147,745 in March 2024.
• The fall to March 2025 was the first year-on-year decline since March 2018, and the fall to March 2026 is the second.

A six-month snapshot: all of the fall came early

The release also gives a snapshot for 30 September 2025. Officer numbers were 145,549 FTE then, so March 2026 is actually +337 FTE higher than in September.

The net flow

• In 2025/26, 8,872 FTE officers joined the 43 forces (excluding transfers) and 9,240 FTE left, so the net flow was −368 FTE. In 2024/25 it was −940.
• Joiners rose by 1,017 but leavers rose by 445, so the gap narrowed rather than closed.
• To keep numbers level, recruitment has to at least match the roughly 9,000 FTE who have left each year since 2022/23.
• Transfers between the 43 forces net to zero nationally. In the year, 1,228 FTE transferred in and 1,167 FTE out, a small net gain of 61, the balance being moves to or from BTP and other non-Home Office forces.

One force accounts for the fall

The short version: strip out the Metropolitan Police and the other 42 forces grew.

• Nine forces recorded fewer officers and 34 recorded more. The Metropolitan Police fell by 1,798 FTE (−5.4%) to 31,495.
• The other eight forces that fell lost only 78 FTE between them, while the 34 forces that grew added 1,310 FTE.
• So, outside the Met, the other 42 forces together grew by about 1,232 FTE.

The same picture from the flow side

The force-level joiner and leaver tables (JL1 to JL4) tell the same story from the other direction.

• The Met recorded 670 FTE joiners and 2,155 FTE leavers, a net of −1,485.
• Every other force combined recorded 8,202 joiners and 7,085 leavers, a net of +1,117.
• The release does not say why the Met's intake was so low relative to its leavers, so we do not either.

Leaver and resignation rates

• The leaver rate (leavers as a share of officers at the start of the year) was 6.3% in 2025/26, up from 6.0% and below the 6.6% peak of 2022/23. The 2020/21 dip to 4.7% is thought to reflect the pandemic.
• Voluntary resignations run at a rate of 3.2%, unchanged on last year and slightly below the 3.4% peak of 2023/24. That is roughly four times the 0.8% of 2011/12.

From retirement to resignation

The short version: resignation has replaced retirement as the main way officers leave.

• Between 2010 and 2020 most leavers retired: normal retirement was typically 60% to 70% of leavers. That fell from 63.3% in 2017/18 to 35.7% in 2023/24 and is 37.7% now.
• Voluntary resignation rose from 26.6% of leavers in 2017/18 to 55.7% in 2023/24 and is 51.4% in 2025/26.
• Dismissals or contract terminations were 5.0% of leavers, up from 2.8% in 2020/21.

Who resigns: mostly new officers

The retention story in three numbers

• 60.6% of officers who resigned had less than five years' service (2,956 of 4,877 people), and 822 (16.9%) had under a year. The 2024/25 share was 66.7%.
• 34.0% of all leavers (3,203 of 9,426 people) had under five years' service. That is higher than the 31.7% share of under-five-year officers in post at the start of the year, so new officers are somewhat over-represented among leavers.
• 22.1% of resignations were by officers with ten or more years' service, so mid-career resignations are a minority but not a trivial one.

At the other end: retirements

• Of 3,533 officers (headcount) leaving by normal retirement, 90.0% had at least 20 years' service, and 36.1% had 30 or more.
• Only 1,032 officers in post (0.7%) have served 30 years or more, which the Home Office says may reflect officers in the oldest legacy pension scheme being able to draw their pension after 30 years.

Where the numbers stand

The short version: 43,525 officers (29.4% of 147,822) had under five years' service on 31 March 2026.

• A year earlier it was 46,992 (31.7%) with 7,452 (5.0%) under a year.
• Between 2020 and 2023 the number rose from 35,515 (27.0%) to 53,774 (36.0%), coinciding with uplift recruitment.
• It has since fallen for three years but is still 15.0 percentage points above the 14.4% of March 2016, when the Home Office began collecting the data.

Why it is a cohort story

• The 2020 to 2023 intake is not leaving so much as ageing: officers with five to under ten years' service went from 18.5% to 23.6% of the workforce between 2016 and 2026.
• Over half of officers (53.0%) have under ten years' service.
• The thin band is 10 to 15 years, at 9.8%. The Home Office says this reflects low recruitment in the years ending March 2011 to March 2013.

In our reading, that leaves a thinner band of mid-career officers between the 2020 to 2023 intake and the long-serving group nearing retirement.

By rank and by role

• The pattern is what you would expect from a constable-heavy intake: 42,969 constables (37.6% of constables) had under five years' service, against 12 chief officers (4.4% of that rank).
• The neighbourhood policing tables add that 62.1% of neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs had under ten years' service against 53.6% of all officers and PCSOs, so neighbourhood roles skew towards less experienced staff.

Rank by rank

• Constables fell by 616 FTE to 112,617 (77.2% of officers), and inspectors by 131 to 6,771.
• Sergeants rose by 153 to 22,581, chief inspectors by 23 to 2,219, superintendents by 12 to 1,069 and chief officers by 7 to 269.
• Chief superintendents fell 13 to 359, the largest proportional fall (3.5%).

Promotions fell sharply

• Constables becoming sergeants were 60.4% of all promotions.
• With fewer promotions and a large cohort moving past five years' service, how quickly the pipeline of first-line supervisors refills is worth watching in next year's data. That is a question, not a finding.

Women

• Women officers rose by 869 FTE (1.6%) on the year: the highest number and proportion since records began in 2003.
• North Wales (43.6%) and Cumbria (43.2%) have the highest proportions; the City of London (25.8%), Metropolitan Police (32.3%) and Dorset (34.1%) the lowest.
• The joiner share of 44.1% is second only to the 44.2% of the year before.

Ethnic minority officers

• Ethnic minority officers were up 211 FTE (1.7%) on the year, the highest proportion since comparable records began.
• Of the total, 5,553 (3.9% of officers) identified as Asian, 3,848 (2.7%) as mixed, 1,817 (1.3%) as Black and 1,084 (0.8%) as another ethnic group.

Representation falls with seniority

• 6.9% of officers at chief inspector or above were ethnic minority against 9.2% of constables, which the Home Office attributes to a more diverse cohort of recent joiners who mostly joined as constables.
• Women are 38.8% of constables but 30.0% of sergeants, 28.7% of inspectors, 31.4% of chief inspectors, 32.5% of superintendents, 36.2% of chief superintendents and 31.5% of chief officers.
• In the year, 178 of the 2,742 promoted officers who stated their ethnicity (6.5%) were ethnic minority, down from 8.4%, and 1,069 of the 2,837 promoted (37.7%) were female.

The force picture is uneven

• The Metropolitan Police had the highest ethnic minority share (19.1%, against 46.3% of Londoners), followed by West Midlands (15.4% against 38.6%) and Bedfordshire (10.3% against 28.0%).
• Cumbria and North Wales had around 99% White officers.
• PCSOs (14.3%) and special constables (13.1%) are more diverse than officers, and women are 63.1% of police staff, 46.9% of PCSOs and 25.3% of special constables.

Disability, sexual orientation and religion

• The release's annex adds self-reported characteristics, with high rates of unknown responses (disability 32.2%, sexual orientation 30.0%, religion 28.5%).
• Of officers with disability status known, 11.3% declared a disability against 17.8% of the population.
• Of those with sexual orientation known, 5.0% were gay or lesbian and 3.5% bisexual.

Treat these as indicative, because around a third of records are blank. For more, see our demographics analysis.

Frontline officer numbers

• Frontline officer numbers (HMICFRS's frontline policing model) fell 1.3% to 115,764 FTE (from 117,282), close to the 117,132 of March 2022 and 7,701 FTE (6.2%) below the 123,465 peak in March 2023.
• The frontline proportion was 90.5%, up from 90.3% but below the 93.4% of March 2015 and 2016.
• Frontline support (6,173) and business support (5,940) roles both fell.

By function group

• Local policing (the largest, at 43.4% of officers counted) fell 2,445 FTE (4.2%) to 55,561, while investigations grew to 23,676 (18.5%) and public protection to 15,298 (12.0%).
• The smallest groups were investigative support (0.4%), dealing with the public (2.5%) and criminal justice arrangements (2.8%).
• The ‘Other’ group rose 1,186 FTE (11.7%) to 11,282.

Neighbourhood policing: year one of the Guarantee

The short version: neighbourhood policing grew by 3,814 FTE in year one, 126.7% of the 3,011 FTE target.

• The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, announced in December 2024, committed the government to 13,000 additional neighbourhood personnel by the end of this Parliament. Funding, including £200 million for 2025/26, started on 1 April 2025.
• The growth is very uneven by force. Metropolitan Police added 607 FTE and West Midlands 351; 2 forces (Lincolnshire and Gloucestershire) recorded a fall against their baseline.
• In the bulletin's words, the 3,814 FTE is a net snapshot, not a cohort: officers move in and out of neighbourhood roles all year.
• Only 1,206 FTE (5.9%) of neighbourhood personnel in post were standard direct recruits who joined since April 2025.

Group by group

• Police staff and designated officers (81,296 FTE) fell 710 (0.9%) after rising every year from 2017 to 2025, and are 2,140 FTE (2.6%) below the 83,436 of March 2010. Staff leavers were 7,612 FTE (rate 9.3%, from 9.4%) but staff joiners fell 21.1%.
• PCSOs (7,259 FTE) fell 55 (0.8%) and are 9,658 (57.1%) below the March 2010 peak of 16,918. Their leaver rate was 13.0% (13.4%) with 949 leavers.
• Special constables (5,196 headcount) fell 324 (5.9%) and are 15,147 below the March 2012 peak of 20,343, having fallen every year since. 1,321 left in the year (1,445 before) although special constable joiners rose 92 (9.4%).
• Police support volunteers rose 26 to 6,035.

Availability: absence and limited duties

• Of the 6,670 FTE officers on long-term absence, 3,358 were on sick leave, 1,806 on maternity or paternity leave, 738 on career breaks and 749 suspended.
• Long-term sickness was 2.8% among women against 2.0% among men, and 2.4% among constables against 1.4% for superintendents and above.
• 573 officers (0.4%) were on both recuperative and adjusted duties.
• Every force supplied limited-duties data this year, against 41 or 42 last year, so some of the apparent rise reflects better recording, not more limited-duty officers.

The absence figures matter because officers on long-term absence are counted in the 145,886 but not available for deployment. See absence and limited duties explained.

Officers per head of population

The short version: England and Wales had 236 FTE officers per 100,000 residents on 31 March 2026 (the four Welsh forces combined: 256), using ONS mid-2024 population estimates.

• The Metropolitan Police had the highest rate at 347, followed by Merseyside (282), Cumbria (277) and Greater Manchester (274).
• The lowest were Lincolnshire (152), Wiltshire (160) and Hampshire and Isle of Wight (166). The City of London has no published rate.
• Rates reflect resident population, not the daytime or visitor population that some forces police, so they are a crude measure of policing capacity.

Where recruitment is heaviest

• By volume of joiners (FTE, excluding transfers), the largest intakes were West Midlands (792), Metropolitan Police (670), Greater Manchester (621), Thames Valley (429), West Yorkshire (417).
• By joiner rate, the highest were West Midlands (9.7%), Dorset (9.1%), Hampshire and Isle of Wight (9.0%), Leicestershire (9.0%), Cumbria (8.8%).
• The highest leaver rates were North Yorkshire (8.3%), Gloucestershire (8.1%), Dorset (8.0%). National rates were 6.1% for joiners and 6.3% for leavers.

If you are thinking about applying, the force table above and our police jobs guide show where forces are recruiting.