UK Police Officer Salary 2026/27

Overview of UK police pay

Police officer pay in the United Kingdom is not set on the open market: it is set centrally on a national pay scale that every territorial force in England and Wales applies, with two cost-of-living top-ups (London weighting and Regional Allowance) layered on. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own pay scales agreed with their respective devolved settlements, but the figures sit within roughly two per cent of the England and Wales spine. The result is that a constable in Devon and Cornwall, Merseyside or Northumbria earns the same base pay as a constable in West Mercia at the same point on the scale, while a constable in the Metropolitan Police or the City of London Police earns a fixed London weighting on top.

The mechanism that sets the annual uplift is the Police Remuneration Review Body, an independent body that takes evidence from the Home Office, the Police Federation, the National Police Chiefs Council and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. The PRRB makes a recommendation, the Home Secretary accepts (in full, in part, or not at all), and a Home Office police pay circular is published that sets the new scales for the year starting 1 September. For 2025/26 the Home Office announced a 4.75% consolidated uplift in September 2025. The 2026/27 settlement is expected in the same window and is typically in the 3% to 5% range, tracking pay restraint policy and the wider public sector pay envelope. Pay figures on this page reflect the 2025/26 circular, which remains the most recent published settlement at the time of writing.

Beyond base pay the federated ranks (Constable, Sergeant, Inspector, Chief Inspector) qualify for overtime, unsocial hours premia, on-call allowance, and a number of specialist payments such as Dog Handlers Allowance and Hard-to-Fill Posts payments. Above Chief Inspector the rank structure switches to chief officer pay (Superintendent, Chief Superintendent and senior ranks), which uses different spot rates and is not covered by this page. Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) sit on a separate, lower scale set locally by each force and are not federated police officers.

London weighting and Regional Allowance

Two different supplements address higher housing and commuting costs in and around London. London weighting applies inside the M25, on every spine point and at every rank. The full value is £2,945 a year for officers in the Metropolitan Police Service and the City of London Police, paid as a consolidated, pensionable addition to base pay. The London weighting figures in the table above are the all-in amounts after the weighting is added.

Outside the Met but within commuting distance, seven forces operate a Regional Allowance because their officers face London-adjacent property prices but do not get the London weighting. Surrey, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Bedfordshire, Sussex and Thames Valley each pay a Regional Allowance in the £2,000 to £3,000 a year range. The exact value is set locally by the Police and Crime Commissioner. Regional Allowance is pensionable and consolidated on the same basis as London weighting.

Both supplements are treated as ordinary employment income for tax: they pass through PAYE, attract Income Tax at the marginal rate, employee National Insurance (Class 1), and Police Pension 2015 contributions just like base pay. There is no separate tax treatment that recognises the cost-of-living rationale, so an officer who moves from Greater Manchester to the Metropolitan Police sees the headline £2,945 weighting, but keeps roughly £1,650 of it after a 28% combined Income Tax and NI cut (and pension).

Police Pension Scheme 2015

Every serving police officer who joined after 1 April 2015 is enrolled in the Police Pension Scheme 2015, a Career Average Revalued Earnings (CARE) defined benefit scheme. Each year an officer earns a pension of 1/55.3 of their pensionable earnings for that year. The accrued amount is revalued annually in line with CPI plus an additional 1.25% during active service. Normal Pension Age is 60 for the 2015 scheme (against 50 to 55 for the legacy 1987 and 2006 schemes, which were closed to new entrants).

Employee contributions are tiered by salary. The standard rate is 13.44% of pensionable pay. Officers on lower bands pay 12.44% (pensionable pay below approximately £29,000) or 11.44% (very low part-time pensionable pay). The contribution is deducted under the net-pay arrangement, meaning it comes out of taxable pay before Income Tax is calculated. This gives full Income Tax relief at the marginal rate, which is the most efficient pension-tax treatment available. NI relief is not given on net-pay contributions, only Income Tax relief.

The employer contribution is around 31% of pensionable pay (the precise figure is set by the Government Actuary in the quadrennial valuation and changes each cycle). Combined with the employee 13.44%, total contributions to the scheme are roughly 45% of pensionable pay. This is significantly higher than any private-sector defined contribution scheme: a typical workplace DC pension contributes 8% combined. Officers who opt out of the scheme forgo this employer match and the death-in-service lump sum (typically three times pensionable pay) and ill-health early retirement protection.

The McCloud remedy resolved age discrimination in the 2015 transition: members of the 1987 or 2006 schemes who were not transferred to the 2015 scheme on its introduction (because they were within 10 years of retirement age) were retrospectively offered a choice of accruing benefits in their legacy scheme or the 2015 scheme for the remedy period 2015 to 2022. New joiners since 1 April 2022 are all in the 2015 scheme; the McCloud choice applies only to legacy members.

Overtime, allowances and unsocial hours

Federated officers up to and including Sergeant rank are eligible for paid overtime. Overtime is paid at time-and-a-third for hours worked beyond the standard rostered shift, time-and-a-half on rest days (with a minimum four-hour payment), and double time on Bank Holidays and public holidays declared under the police regulations. Inspectors and Chief Inspectors do not receive paid overtime; their pay scales include compensation for out-of-hours responsibility and on-call.

Unsocial hours premium is a percentage uplift on the hourly rate for any duty hours worked between 8pm and 6am, currently 10% of the hourly rate (rising to 20% in some forces operating a higher band). It applies to constables, sergeants and operational inspectors and is paid on the basic shift, not just overtime. Officers regularly working night shifts therefore see unsocial hours payments make up a meaningful portion of monthly pay - sometimes £200 to £500 a month for a constable on regular night-rota duty.

All overtime and allowance income is taxable as ordinary employment income, deducted under PAYE in the month paid. NI applies at the marginal Class 1 rate (8% main rate, 2% above the Upper Earnings Limit). The pension treatment depends on whether the allowance is pensionable: London weighting, Regional Allowance and standard pay are all pensionable, but overtime and most ad hoc allowances are not.

Specialist payments add to gross income for officers in particular roles: Dog Handlers Allowance (£2,820 a year, paid weekly to handlers maintaining a force dog at home), Hard-to-Fill Posts payments (negotiated locally, typically £1,000 to £3,000 to retain officers in critical posts such as digital forensics or armed response), and on-call allowance (£20 to £30 per on-call period at home, varies by force). All are taxable; pensionability varies by item.

Comparison vs similar roles

A new-entrant constable on £31,335 sits just above the UK median full-time salary (£37,430 for full-time employees per ONS ASHE 2024) at the lower end, and a top-of-scale constable at £48,232 is comparable to a senior nurse (Agenda for Change Band 7 mid-point) or a teacher on the upper pay range. A sergeant at £55,016 (point 4) is in the same band as an experienced civil servant Grade 7 or a senior NHS Band 8a manager. Inspectors at £66,958 (point 3 top) reach a level on par with mid-career consulting and senior software engineering roles.

Where police pay differs sharply from private-sector roles at the same gross level is the pension: 13.44% employee plus around 31% employer in the 2015 scheme is roughly five to six times the typical private-sector workplace pension contribution. A constable on £42,870 effectively receives an additional £13,000 a year in deferred employer pension contribution, which does not appear on the payslip but accrues toward a guaranteed inflation-linked retirement income.

• Police constable - rank-specific landing page with constable progression detail.
• NHS Band 7 nurse - similar gross at top of band 7.
• Experienced teacher (M6-UPS3) - mid-career teacher comparable to constable point 7.
• Civil Service Grade 7 - similar gross band to sergeant / junior inspector.
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