Every route into policing, prisons and probation

Policing has four front doors and most people only know about one of them. Prisons and probation have simpler routes that almost nobody knows about at all. The useful thing to understand first is that none of these services requires you to arrive with a degree, and two of the three do not care about A levels either.

Police entry routes are those set nationally by the College of Policing for England and Wales as of August 2026. Individual forces choose which routes they run and when, so the options in your area may be narrower than the national list.

The four police routes

Read that table again if you have ever been told policing is graduates only. PCEP is the route without a degree or A level requirement, it runs two years and it replaced the old IPLDP nationally on 1 April 2024. It is the one that gets least airtime and it is the one most school leavers should be looking at.

PCDA is the degree apprenticeship: three years, you earn a degree while you work and you are paid throughout. It needs a Level 3 qualification — two A levels, a BTEC, a T Level or equivalent — and you can specialise in year three.

DHEP is for people who already have a degree in anything at all. Two years, ending in a graduate diploma in professional policing practice.

The pre-join degree is the only route where you pay. You study professional policing at your own expense and then apply. For most people the apprenticeship makes more sense: same destination, no fees, a salary throughout.

Prison officer: the fastest route in

No degree, no A levels, no experience. Apply, pass the assessment, pass vetting, then Prison Officer Entry Level Training — 10 weeks, plus a week in an establishment either side, on full pay from the start.

The realistic timeline is set by the checks rather than the training. Security, identity, employment and health checks take 8 to 10 weeks on their own, so plan for months between applying and starting rather than weeks.

It is the shortest path from no qualifications to a public-service salary and a pension anywhere on this site. It is also demanding work with people at their worst — read the prison officer role page before you decide it is the easy option, because it is not.

Probation: start as a PSO, qualify later

Probation splits into two levels and the distinction matters when you are reading job adverts.

Probation services officer is the entry role. You manage lower risk cases, you do not need a probation qualification to start, and it is the door most people come through.

Probation officer handles higher risk cases and requires a professional qualification. The usual path is to join as a PSO and then be sponsored through the qualifying programme while employed — earning throughout rather than studying first and hoping.

That structure is unusually friendly to someone starting at 18 with no degree: you get in on the lower rung and the employer pays to move you up. Compare the two on the probation services officer and probation officer pages.

The routes people overlook

PCSO. Police community support officer is a job in its own right, not a waiting room — but it is also the single best preparation for applying as a constable, because it is the same environment and the same public. See the PCSO role page.

Special constable. Volunteer, warranted, trained, part time alongside your job or course. It is the closest thing to trying policing before committing to it, and it is well regarded when you apply as a regular.

Police staff roles. Control room, custody, forensics, administration. Not warranted officers, no fitness test, and they get you inside the organisation. Look at scenes of crime officer and fingerprint officer.

All three are legitimate careers on their own terms. They also happen to be the strongest possible position from which to apply for something else later.

So: PCEP if you have no degree and no A levels, PCDA if you have Level 3 and want the degree paid for, DHEP if you already graduated — plus prison officer as the fastest route from nothing to a public-service salary, and probation as the one that will qualify you on the job. Next: what the assessment involves and what vetting checks.

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