How many police officers are there in England and Wales?

The Home Office publishes police workforce statistics twice a year (as at 31 March and 30 September), counting officers, staff, PCSOs and special constables as headcount and full-time equivalents for each force.

Claims about officer numbers often use a particular start date, such as 2010 or 2019. Check which date, which measure (FTE or headcount) and whether officers seconded elsewhere are included. Police Scotland and the PSNI publish their own figures.

Official sources: Police workforce, England and Wales

The latest figure

The newest value is at Home Office. More on it: Police officer numbers (England and Wales).

When is the next figure out?

Biannual on GOV.UK: figures for 31 March are published in July (22 July 2026 for March 2026) and figures for 30 September in January. Each release has its own .ods data tables with a new URL; the GOV.UK Content API for the release page lists them

Every official release due in the next two weeks is on the release calendar.

Terms used in this answer

• Full-time equivalent (FTE) and headcount
  FTE converts part-time posts into full-time units, so two half-time staff count as one FTE. Headcount counts each person once regardless of hours.
• Headcount
  A count of individual people, each counted once regardless of how many hours they work or how many posts they hold.
• England and Wales
  A single legal jurisdiction, so crime, courts, prisons and death registration statistics are often published for England and Wales together.
• Administrative data
  Information collected by organisations while running a service, such as tax records, benefit claims or hospital activity, and then used to produce statistics.

Where the figures come from

• Defence, foreign aid and counter-terrorism statistics (MOD, FCDO, NATO, OECD, Home Office)
  Where to find official UK defence spending, armed forces numbers, NATO comparisons, foreign aid (ODA), arms export licences and terrorism statistics.

Related questions

• How many stop and searches do police carry out?
• What is the UK prison population?
• Where can I find official crime statistics?

This answer says where the official figures are published and how they are defined. It gives no verdict on any claim. To report an error, send a correction request. More questions about crime, police, prisons and courts: all Crime, police, prisons and courts questions.