Global progressive policing

The 2025 police workforce in England and Wales: Finding enough recruits is difficult – keeping them is even harder

The latest police workforce data for England and Wales shows that over the last five years, forces have recruited the equivalent of 44% of the current officer strength, but the equivalent of 31% have left; in the second in this new series of articles on workforce development, Ian Wiggett looks at the effect on levels of experience and skills, the high levels of young in service resignations, and how politicians’ fixation on officer numbers has resulted in little attention being paid to the effect on the ground.

To read this article you need to have an individual paid subscription or subscriber access via your organisation’s corporate subscription.

Please sign in to your account or subscribe to a plan below to read this article.

If your organisation has a corporate subscription please register a FREE account with your organisation email address for full subscriber access.


Having problems creating an account or can't sign in? Please e-mail [email protected]

Request a password reset using the form below


Having problems creating an account or can't sign in? Please e-mail [email protected]



Having problems creating an account or can't sign in? Please e-mail [email protected]

Top