Police officer salary in the UK
Police pay in England and Wales is set nationally in the Police Regulations, so the scale below applies in every force. London officers get an extra London weighting.
Constable, starting pay
£31,164
from 1 September 2025
Constable, top of scale
£50,256
from 1 September 2025
Como ler este número
How to read this figure
De onde vem o dado
Source: Home Office, circular 011/2026: Annex F (amendment) – pay, Police Regulations 2003
Cuidado
What this number does not tell you
O que fazer com isso
What to do with this figure
Constable pay scale
A new constable appointed on or after 1 April 2013 starts at pay point 1, £31,164, and moves up one point a year until the top of the scale, £50,256. Chief officers may appoint recruits straight onto pay point 2 to meet local recruitment needs.
Officers in the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police receive London weighting of £3,150 on top of these figures, and may also receive a London allowance.
Constable pay, England and Wales, with effect from 1 September 2025
| Pay point | Annual pay |
|---|---|
| Pay point 1 | £31,164 |
| Pay point 2 | £32,472 |
| Pay point 3 | £33,789 |
| Pay point 4 | £35,106 |
| Pay point 5 | £37,737 |
| Pay point 6 | £43,038 |
| Pay point 7 | £50,256 |
Pay by rank
Sergeant, inspector and chief inspector scales differ between the Metropolitan and City of London forces and the rest of England and Wales.
Police pay scales by rank, with effect from 1 September 2025
| Rank | Lowest pay point | Highest pay point |
|---|---|---|
| Constable (joined on or after 1 April 2013) | £31,164 | £50,256 |
| Constable (joined before 1 April 2013) | £32,820 | £50,256 |
| Sergeant | £53,568 | £56,208 |
| Inspector (Metropolitan and City of London) | £66,462 | £71,697 |
| Inspector (other forces) | £63,768 | £68,982 |
| Chief Inspector (Metropolitan and City of London) | £73,062 | £75,855 |
| Chief Inspector (other forces) | £70,344 | £73,149 |
| Superintendent | £84,177 | £99,015 |
| Chief Superintendent | £103,797 | £115,785 |
What the earnings survey says
For the 2025 provisional data, ONS suppressed the annual pay estimate for police officers at sergeant rank and below (SOC 3312) in the UK and in London, the South East and the East of England, because of an error in the returns it received. Until the revised 2025 dataset is published, the official pay scale above is the reliable figure.
Scotland and Northern Ireland
The scale above is for England and Wales. Police Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland have their own pay scales, agreed separately, with similar but not identical figures.
How does police officer salary in the uk compare with the rest of the United Kingdom?
At £31,164, police officer salary in the uk is close to the £32,890 that average salary in the uk publishes for the United Kingdom as a whole — a difference of 5%. That gap is the first thing worth checking before comparing two job offers.
Chief Superintendent or Constable (joined on or after 1 April 2013): how far apart are they?
On this page, Chief Superintendent tops the table at £103,797, while Constable (joined on or after 1 April 2013) is the lowest at £31,164 — 3.3 times more. A gap this size is worth a second look before treating the figures as interchangeable.
What does "with effect from 1 September 2025" mean for police officer salary in the uk?
The figures for police officer salary in the uk come from Home Office, circular 011/2026: Annex F (amendment) – pay, Police Regulations 2003, with a reference period of with effect from 1 September 2025. Pay statistics like this one are not updated in real time: the underlying survey or register takes months to collect and process, so the number reflects pay around that date, not today.
Glossário: os termos desta página
Median vs. mean
The median is the middle value when every salary is lined up from lowest to highest: half earn less, half earn more. The mean is the simple average. A handful of very high salaries pulls the mean up without moving the median, so the median is usually the better guide to what a typical person earns.
Percentile
A percentile splits the distribution into 100 equal parts. The 10th percentile is the value only a tenth of people earn below; the 90th percentile is what only a tenth earn above. Looking at several percentiles shows the full spread, not just one average.
Fonte: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) — Office for National Statistics.
Coefficient of variation
A measure of how much an estimate could be off, expressed as a percentage of the estimate itself. Statistical agencies use it to flag figures based on too small a sample: a high coefficient of variation means the number should be read as a rough order of magnitude, not an exact figure.
Fonte: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) — Office for National Statistics.
Pay scale
A published table of fixed pay points or bands that an employer, usually in the public sector, must follow for a given role — for example an NHS band or a police rank. Pay within the scale usually rises with time served rather than being negotiated case by case.
Collective agreement
A pay and conditions deal negotiated between an employer or employer group and a trade union, binding on everyone it covers. Public-sector pay scales are usually set this way, which is why they change on a fixed schedule rather than whenever an individual employer chooses.
Reference period
The point in time, or the stretch of time, that a published figure actually describes. Pay surveys take months to collect and process, so the reference period is usually well before the date the figures are released, and always before the date you are reading them.
Pay statistics glossary — todos os 10 termos.
Source: Home Office, circular 011/2026: Annex F (amendment) – pay, Police Regulations 2003
Reference period: with effect from 1 September 2025
Data collected on: 7 October 2026
Reference period: April 2025
Data collected on: 7 October 2026
Released 2025-10-22, last revised 2025-12-19. Estimates marked by ONS as having a coefficient of variation above 20% are suppressed and shown here as unavailable.
Figures are statistical averages for a whole group of employees. Your own pay depends on your employer, your experience, your hours and where you work.