UK Police Officer Yearly Salary 2022

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Ever wonder, ‘how much does a Police Officer earn?’ While the specific salary of a police officer depends on where you work and what rank you achieve. The average police officer salary is around £44,000 per year in the United Kingdom. This article will take you through the Police officer’s yearly salary at all of the different ranks, so you know what you can expect.

Police Officer Starting Wage

Becoming a police officer is not a fast track to riches. The starting wage for a new police officer is just over £18,000 per year if you are starting on the PCDA route (earning a degree in policing as you train).

If you enter policing down the traditional entry route, your starting salary will be just over £21,000.  London is an expensive city to live in, so if you want to work there, you’ll get a higher wage than in other parts of the country.

London Weighting for Police Officers

Officers working in London (the Metropolitan Police or City of London Police) get additional pay, known as ‘London Weighting’. Due to the cost of living in London, officers here are paid slightly higher than the rest of the country.

London allowances are; £2,373 per annum pensionable London weighting and £1,011 per annum non-pensionable London allowance.

There is the potential that as an officer living and working in London that you may qualify for rent or housing allowance. If you are not entitled to rent or housing allowance, you will receive an additional amount of £3,327, which is to compensate for the increased cost of living.

Police Officer Yearly Salary for all Ranks

The table below shows the starting wage for police officers and then the hourly rate that police officer gets paid. A full-time police officer works 40 hours per week. All of the police officer monthly and hourly pay calculations have been worked out using a 40-hour workweek and are calculated in GBP.

For a quick summary of police officer starting salaries for each police officer rank as of September 2020 check out the below;

  ➡️  Constable Starting Wage: £18,912

  ➡️  Sergeant Starting Wage: £43,965

  ➡️  Inspector Starting Wage: £52,698

  ➡️  Chief Inspector Starting Wage:  £58,332

  ➡️  Superintendent Starting Wage: £68,460

  ➡️  Chief Superintendent Starting Wage: £84,849

  ➡️  Chief Constable Starting Wage: Varies

*taken from the Police Federations website

Within each of the ranks, there are a number of ‘scales’ or ‘spinal points’ these generally increase on an annual basis from the date that the officer is promoted into the rank. For all of the individual scales within each of the ranks, check out the tables below.

Police Salary by Rank

Police Constable Salary

ScaleAnnualMonthlyHourly
PCDA18,9121,57610
 021,4021,78411
 124,7802,06513
 225,9022,15913
 327,0302,25314
 428,1582,34715
 530,4112,53416
 634,9502,91318
 741,1303,42821

Police Sergeant Salary

ScaleAnnualMonthlyHourly
1Removed 
243,9653,66423
344,9013,74223
446,2273,85224

Police Inspectors Salary

ScaleAnnualMonthlyHourly
052,6984,39227
154,1864,51628
255,6714,63929
357,1624,76430

Chief Inspectors Salary

ScaleAnnualMonthlyHourly
158,3324,86130
259,5024,95931
360,7325,06132

Superintendents Salary

ScaleAnnualMonthlyHourly
168,4605,70536
272,0336,00338
375,7956,31639
480,8596,73842

Chief Superintendents Salary

ScaleAnnualMonthlyHourly
184,8497,07144
287,7177,31046
389,5117,45947

Chief Constables Salary

Chief Constables are paid based on the Force that they are managing. Typically, the larger forces attract a higher salary.

If you want your own printable copy of the UK Police Officer Pay Scales for all ranks click the button below!

Police Officer Yearly Salary vs Take Home Pay

Pensions

From your salary, your pension contributions will automatically be deducted. If you stay with the police pension, 14% will be deducted from your wages and automatically and automatically paid into your pension for you.

For more information on police pensions for officers joining check out this article.

Unsociable Hours

Officers that are undertaking a role that needs them to work night shifts will get additional pay for these hours.

On Call

Some specialist roles within policing will require officers to be ‘on call’. This means that the officer can be called out from their home address in order to perform specialist duties at short notice. Officers will get paid an additional wage for this.

Overtime

With budget constraints, overtime is not as available as it used to be, however, if police officers perform additional duties, they may be eligible to claim overtime for these.


Other than the pay, there are a lot of other benefits that police officers receive

Other Police Benefits: What Kind of Benefits do Police officers get?

Aside from the salary, there are a number of other benefits that come along with being a police officer.

  ✅  A minimum of 22 days annual leave which increases with length of service

  ✅  Fully-paid sick leave.

  ✅  Automatically enrolled on to the police pension scheme.

  ✅  May benefit from free local travel

  ✅  External to the Police – a number of companies will offer discounts to police officers through the various schemes.

For more on police pay, check out the Federation’s survey on the topic.

UK Police Officer Pay Summary

In summary, joining the police is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it is definitely a vocation.

However, that having been said, the wage you can earn as a police officer is higher than the average wage in the UK. Furthermore, there are a lot of benefits to working for an organisation the size of the Police.  

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