Police officers uphold law and order by detecting, preventing and investigating crimes.
What does a police officer do? | Graduate salaries | Typical employers | Qualifications and training | Key skills
Police officers respond to reports of incidents and follow up to help solve crimes. This could involve speaking to victims of crimes and witnesses, searching for evidence, investigating what has happened, making arrests and interviewing suspects. Later, they may need to give evidence in court.
There is also a preventative aspect to police officers’ work. For example, they may patrol areas and attend large events.
Alongside location-focused police forces, there are specialist forces such as the British Transport Police and the Ministry of Defence Police.
Typical duties include:
- interviewing suspected criminals.
- taking statements.
- writing crime reports and keeping them up to date.
- gathering prosecution evidence.
- giving evidence in court.
- fostering good relationships with the public.
- patrolling areas by foot, bike, motorcycle and car.
- making and processing arrests.
- searching suspects.
- responding to emergencies and accidents.
- offering advice and reassurance to the public.
- providing advice on crime prevention.
- controlling traffic and crowds.
- keeping the peace/mediating in tense situations.
You’ll work shifts as a police officer; these vary from one force to another. You’re likely also to need to work extra hours to respond to emergencies.
Graduate salaries
Graduates joining the police under the degree holder entry programme earn between around £24,000 and £31,000. (Salaries vary across forces, with salaries in London being highest.)
Salaries are similar if you join the Police Now national graduate leadership programme (one of the graduate entry routes into the police): £24,780 and £31,020, plus location allowances.
Typical employers of police officers
- Local police forces.
- The Ministry of Defence Police.
- British Transport Police.
- Civil Nuclear Constabulary.
- National Police Air Service.
Most forces, including specialist ones, advertise jobs on their websites and on local jobs boards. The Police Now national graduate leadership programme is advertised on targetjobs.co.uk.
Qualifications and training required
It is possible to become a police officer both with or without a degree.
You could qualify through a police constable degree apprenticeship, which takes a minimum of three years to complete. You will need at least 48 UCAS points with at two A levels, one of which should be A*–C and one that is A*–E (or equivalent).
You could also take a degree in policing, which usually lasts for three years. Once you’ve graduated, you can apply to join the police.
If you’re a graduate you could join a degree-holder entry programme. As mentioned, one is the Police Now Leadership programme, which is open to candidates with a minimum 2.1 in any degree discipline and works with a number of forces across England and Wales.
You’ll need to meet other non-academic entry requirements to join the police, and these vary from one force to another. A number of forces require you to have lived in the UK for at least three years before you apply for a job. Check with individual forces for their entry requirements.
Key skills for police officers
- Assertiveness.
- The ability to think on your feet.
- The ability to remain calm in challenging or dangerous situations
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including the ability to listen.
- Confidence working with people from all backgrounds.
- Teamworking skills.
- Problem solving skills.
- Negotiation skills.
Achieving success as a police officer requires developing certain skills.
15 Police Officer Qualities That Guaranty Career Success
If you are thinking of becoming a police officer and be successful on the job, there are certain qualities and skills you need to develop.
Law enforcement is a tough job, which can seriously task both your physical and mental capacity, and can be overwhelming too if you are not prepared for it.
By developing the qualities shared below, you will be able to handle the day-to-day challenges of the police officer job and come up tops in your performance, probably becoming the best officer in the police department.
15 Qualities and Skills to Achieve Success as a Police Office
1. Integrity. A police officer and all other persons in the law enforcement occupation must be particularly people of integrity. You must not be found breaking the law you are to protect, like driving while under the influence of substance. You must resist all attempts to break the law as this can get you fired from the police department.
2. Honesty and Strong Sense of Ethics. A police officer must be honest in carrying out his/her duties. He/she should give correct report of event or investigation and must not be seen to lie about a case just to get a suspect punished. Being honest on the job will ensure justice to all and ensure that only those who have broken the law are punished. Police officers are expected to be trustworthy and serve as role model in the community.
3. Physical Fitness. The job of a police office may involve physical activities like running and jumping; for instance, he/she may have to chase down a suspect on foot if a car cannot be used in the area. The officer will need to be healthy and physically fit to be able to successfully get the suspect.
4. Patient. You will need a lot of patient as a police officer to be successful on your job as you deal with various kinds of people with different and sometimes annoying character.
5. Passion. You need to have passion for the job to remain motivated always as the job can expose you to circumstances that may affect your mood negatively, or get you irritated or frustrated. If not well managed, the negative exposures of the job can affect your behavior in handling your tasks, and can destroy your record.
6. Sense of Humor. Having a good sense of humor can help you easily get along with people for them to help you with what you want for your job. Also, a sense of humor will help you maintain a healthy state of mind over unpleasant experience on the job.
7. Critical Thinking and Decision Making Skills. The ability to make the right decision and make it fast too after analyzing the facts available thoroughly and quickly is an important skill a police officer must have to excel on the job. There are many situations in the line of duty of a police officer when they need to make a quick and good decision; therefore, having the ability to quickly think through things critically will be helpful.
8. Ability to Resolve Conflicts. Most of a police officer’s job involves resolving conflicts in the community. A police officer wanting to succeed in his/her career must develop the ability to settle disputes peacefully and get the parties involved satisfied.
9. Empathy and Compassion. Police officers deal with the people of a community; therefore, their ability to feel with the people, understand what they are going through, and show that they care about them will help in winning their support and cooperation for the officer’s work.
10. Good Communication Skills. Most of a police officer’s job entails communication, including verbal and written communication. For instance, in taking someone’s statement, interviewing a suspect, assuring a complainant that his/her case in being investigated, or persuading certain group of people to move from an area that is prone to danger, the police officer requires the use of his/her communication skills to effectively perform the task.
11. Ability to Adapt. Police officers must be able to adapt to changes taking place in the community, including in the behavior of people and technology to succeed on the job. The police officer’s job on a day-to-day basis is not predictable, therefore, they should be flexible and be prepared to adapt to new situations they encounter.
12. Ability to Balance Work and Life. To be more effective in his/her career, a police officer must be able to take time out from his/her work for his/her personal life. The officer must be able to balance the stress of his/her work with good healthy hobbies. This will make them to be more productive and happy at work and at home.
13. Conscious of Non-Verbal Communication. A police officer desiring to succeed on the job must be conscious of his/her non-verbal communication so as not to give a wrong impression to people they encounter on the job. Officers should be mindful of their facial expression, enunciation, gestures, and the tone of their voices to avoid wrong interpretation by people they deal with in the course of mitigating crisis and easing tension.
14. Ability to Continue Learning and Improving on Job Performance. A law enforcement officer that desires to be the best in his/her career and remain so must continue to take training courses and improve on his/her skills. A police officer must be able to quickly learn how to work with new technology, tools, and techniques, and continually improve their performance on the job.
15. Ability to Control your Emotion. Police officers do experience very terrible incidences in the course of their job, but they must be able to control their emotions and perform their duties professionally. Allowing emotions to take the better of them will lead to a bad job that can dent your reputation and career.
Conclusion
If you are a police officer, you probably want to be successful in your career, which you can achieve by developing the qualities and skills presented in this post.
You may not be able to develop all the qualities at once, but by carefully working on them, you will be amazed how much skill you have acquired and how much improvements you have made in your policing duties over time.
Did this post help you to develop the right qualities for a successful police officer career? Please, share what you think about this article in the comment box below. You can also share other qualities that have helped you become a top performing cop.
Note: If you are interested in becoming a police officer, you will be required to take and pass assessment exams that confirm if you are well suited for the job. See pre-employment assessment tests to learn the kind of exams you will likely be required to take to be hired for the police officer role.