What do police, prison and probation jobs pay?

The honest headline: a police constable starts on £31,163 and is typically on £50,257 within six years. For a job you can enter at 18 with no degree, there is very little in the UK economy that matches that curve. The catch is not the money. It is the shifts, the vetting and the fact that you cannot un-see some of it.

Police figures are the national rates for England and Wales following the 4.2% award. Forces in and around London pay significantly more through weighting and allowances. Fire, prison and probation are set separately and are noted where they differ. All figures are reviewed annually.

Police pay, and the London problem

A constable typically reaches the top of the pay scale in six years, which is a faster ladder than most graduate schemes and you are earning the whole way up.

Now the part that confuses everybody. Search for police pay and you will find figures around £42,210 rising to £47,465. Those are real, and they are the Metropolitan Police — London weighting and allowances on top of the national scale. If you are looking at a force in Yorkshire or Devon, the national figures are the ones that apply to you.

That gap is roughly £11,000 at the start, and it is the single most misread number in policing recruitment. Check the force, not the search result. London costs more to live in for a reason.

Prison officers: paid to train from week one

Prison officer training is Prison Officer Entry Level Training — POELT — and it runs 10 weeks, with a week in an establishment either side. You are paid the standard full-time prison officer salary throughout it, not a trainee rate.

That matters more than it sounds. Twelve weeks of paid training with no qualification required to start is a rare offer at 18, and it is the reason prison officer turns up on lists of jobs that pay well without a degree.

Pay varies by establishment, and prisons in higher-cost areas pay more. Unsocial hours are part of the job and part of the package. Check the current figure for the specific prison rather than a national average — see the prison officer role page.

What lifts the number

Shift allowances. These services run around the clock. Nights, weekends and bank holidays carry uplifts, and in policing the unsocial-hours element is a meaningful share of take-home rather than a rounding error.

Overtime. Available, sometimes unavoidable, and it can be substantial. Treat it as a bonus rather than a plan when you are budgeting.

Specialisms. Firearms, dogs, roads policing, detective work, forensics — most carry additional payments or open higher-banded roles. The sideways moves are where policing gets interesting and where the money follows.

Promotion. Sergeant, inspector, chief inspector are real steps with real jumps, and the services promote internally almost exclusively. Look at the chief inspector page for where the ladder reaches.

The pension, and the part that is not money

Public service pensions are the quiet half of these packages. They are contributory — you pay in, unlike the Armed Forces — but the employer contribution and the terms are well beyond anything on offer at the same salary in the private sector. Over a full career that is worth more than several years of pay.

Then the unglamorous benefits that add up: sick pay that will not evaporate in month two, a structured career path, training paid for, and a job that does not disappear in a recession.

And the honest cost. Shift work damages sleep and social life. The work is genuinely distressing sometimes, and everybody in these services knows someone it caught up with. Support exists and it is better than it was, but pretending the job is only a salary and a pension would be dishonest.

So: £31,163 to start in most of England and Wales, about £50,257 within six years, roughly £11,000 more in London before you assume you are rich, and paid training from week one as a prison officer. Next, every route in, or read what the work involves on the police officer and prison officer role pages.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0