This week, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley warned the force faces its lowest officer numbers in a decade by 2025. The latest officer numbers for the Met show they have nearly 35,000 cops at various ranks. That’s a quarter of all officers in England and Wales forces; no wonder nearly everyone has an ‘I’ve Met the Met’ sticker!
In this blog and special statistical interest piece, I’ll focus in on staffing in the Met Police as by far the biggest UK force. Using the actual Home Office police workforce statistics, I’ll answer the following questions, and more (since media outlets don’t provide this information or full context in reports):
- How have police officer numbers changed over nearly 2 decades, spanning 6 Commissioners, ‘austerity’, and ‘Uplift’?
- Has officer strength kept up with London’s increasing population?
- What does the picture look like for PC, Sergeant, Inspector, and more senior ranks respectively?
- How much has female officer strength grown over time?
- What proportion of the 35,000 cops are actually ‘available for duty’?
- Where is the Commissioner choosing to place his police officers, front line or back office?
- What about police staff and volunteers in the Met Police?
- How much have PCSOs and Specials been decimated over the last decade in the Met?
Before we get into the stats, if you are an aspiring for promotion in the Met police, whether aiming at Sergeant, Inspector, or beyond, my Rank Success digital promotion toolkits and leadership podcast will show you the way to success.
My reflections on the Casey Review, podcast interview series with former Met Police Commander Simon Foy QPM, and other bespoke Met Police content will also steer you in the right direction while providing inspiring leadership food for thought. Consider becoming a premium podcast subscriber to help support this work I put out for free.
Turbulence Ahead for Policing in London?
The BBC reported this week that the Met Police will be getting a 4% increase in its central funding next year of £126 million, up to £3.5 billion. That increase by the way is enough to fund the entire police salary bill in a relatively small force like Dyfed-Powys Police.
However, this seems just a small drop in a very large pond, since the force has declared an overall ‘budget hole’ of £400 million for next year. That’s nearly 10% of its overall £4.5 billion budget (£3.7 billion in 2019/20) and enough to fund the entirety of Kent Police; a force in the top 8 of the 43 England and Wales forces by size. So one could describe the financial situation for the Met as less than ideal.
I’ve previously assessed the churn of turnover among the officer ranks, including why officers are leaving in their droves and how PSD departments have been the clear winners throughout ‘austerity’ and ‘uplift’ alike. The combination of inexperience from Uplift and record leavers (1,253 officers resigned from the Met in 2023-24) places pressure on those who remain.
Certainly these are additional challenges for promotion candidates like you in this VUCA world. Of course, you’ll be putting yourself forward to lead the force positively through such challenges! How you’ll do that will be your ‘elevator pitch’ to the interview panel, i.e….
“Why you?”
Listen to my summary of the national Oscar Kilo survey for insights about the pressures of officers and your role as an aspiring police leader. Forces would be wise to consider the results like they’re a pre-emptive exit survey, seeing as few take the time to do simple, meaningful exit surveys. I notice however the Federation in places have been picking up the slack here, for example the June 2024 edition of Scottish Police Federation’s ‘1919’ magazine gives headline results from their own exit surveying.
Only this week, the Metropolitan Police Federation have pointed again to the incredible scrutiny and pressure. This they argue is also driving cops away from what was traditionally a life-long career, emphasising the declining numbers of officers per 100,000 Londoners amid ‘a culture of fear’. Clearly such a culture is far from an ideal situation, as policing seeks to eradicate the 14 characteristics of toxic police cultures.
Combined with the poor results of the Met’s latest PEEL inspection report, all these are reasons why the force launched its ‘New Met for London’ report in 2023, embedded below as a quick briefing for aspiring Met officers:
So let’s now get into it and look at some of those concerns in terms of officer strength, really digging into and clearly presenting the numbers for you…
Total Met Police Officers vs. Population
We’ll start with the broader, strategic picture. How many police officers are there in the Met Police? At the latest count in 2023, there were 34,899 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) officers. This was a record high for the force in absolute numbers, and the impact of ‘Uplift’ is apparent since its ‘austerity low’ of just over 30,000 in 2018. But latest in-force figures to March 2024, not yet released by the Home Office, show this has dropped to 34,017.
But the policing doesn’t happen in isolation. The police exist to prevent crime and disorder in a population. The Met Police cover London, which now has a population approaching 9 million people. Therefore, a ‘policing per population’ measure helps to compare a more ‘like for like’ approach over time. Like how public spending changes are measured in ‘real terms’ to remove the changeable effects of inflation, but in this case we have a ‘population inflation’.
Police officers per 100,000 population in London stands at 397. While this has recovered in recent years and is now the highest for over a decade (and at a higher rate than the rest of the country), it’s not reached the high observed in 2010 of 436 per 100k people. This means in 2023, there’s around 4 cops for every 1,000 people living in London. And that drops to nearer 385 per 100k people when considering the not-yet-released March 2024 strength figures.
Given the Commissioner’s recent statements and warnings of budget black holes, this doesn’t look like it will be getting better anytime soon. In fact as at March 2024, latest in-force figures put the Met’s strength at little more than 34,000, nearly 800 officers less than 2023. So Uplift didn’t last. 1,250 FTE officers voluntarily resigned from the Met last year, over half of all its leavers and a new record. See my other blog for more detail on the national churn of police officer leavers / joiners.
In fact, the period of 2007-2011, in the era of Sir Ian Blair and Sir Paul Stephenson, saw noticeably higher rates of officers serving the public of London, largely because the population was nearly 1 million fewer back then. Was this relative glut of resources felt?
Met Officers by Rank – Low in Sergeants?
In this section, I’ll briefly summarise the officer FTE strength for each rank in the Met. This is useful to start to compare how the Commissioner prioritises resources and invests in leadership. Such figures vary wildly between forces.
In 2023, there was a ratio of 1 Sergeant to 5.5 Constables. That’s a big ratio, bearing in mind that’s just an average, and you’ll too often have Sergeants managing teams of 8 or more. In the 2007-2012 or so era, this ratio was more like 1 to 4.
As I blogged about 10 years ago in Supervision and Span of Control, beyond a point it becomes too much for Sergeants to do their core role of setting and maintaining standards. Interestingly, one of the criticisms arising from the Casey Review was too big a span of control for Sergeants.
What follows are the 2007-2023 trends for each rank in order; I’ll let you consider the trends (all good practice if you’re wanting promotion to Inspector and practicing getting to grips with performance)! But here’s some key highlights to give you a start:
- Constables: Long term trend up, with some distinctive dips, especially 2017-19.
- Sergeants, Inspectors, and Chief Inspectors: Declined since peak of 2010 and been struggling to recover since 2021. Yet leadership at these levels is critical to front line standards and public service delivery. Latest in-force figures for March 2024 (not yet reported by Home Office) however show a slight recovery with nearly 400 Chief Inspectors, over 1,500 Inspectors and 5,100 Sergeants.
- Superintendents: Large dip 2013-16 but recovered up to record levels in 2023.
- Chief Superintendents: Long term and significant decline.
- Chief Officers: Initial decline from 2011, then recovery to regular highs for last 3 years.
If you work in the Met Police, can you shed any light on the reasons for these variations between the ranks?
Female Officers in the Met Increasing… Slowly
As shown in the below male/female police officer split, the proportion of women in the Met Police is increasing. The Home Office figures for officer sex go back to 2007, and in that time the proportion of women in policing has increased from 21% to 31%.
Within the Met’s current STRIDE 2021-2025 equality and diversity strategy (DEI is important reading if you aspire to Inspector or above), it targets 50% for women officers recruited. Uplift slightly accelerated this overall rise, as the recruitment lever to impact overall figures became bigger. Women in London have accounted for over 10,000 of its police officers since 2022.
However at this rate, and with no further increased recruitment levels on the cards, the Met would take until 2040 to reach 40% female officers. In fact, in its own latest 2024 workforce strength figures, the proportion of women remains at 31%, while among leavers last year 34% were female.
Available for Duty?
The following chart provides some interesting context within the police workforce statistics. While there are 34,899 officers in the Met Police as at 2023, only 33,606 (96%) were actually available for duty. That equates to around 1,300 FTE officers for what the Home Office define as ‘long term absentees’.
Continuing the male and female officer comparisons, this percentage availability particularly seems to have affected women more, and particularly since 2015 whereby availability for that cohort dropped to around 90%. While recent years show a slight recovery, the gap between men and women officers remains.
It’s unclear whether the Met Police count things like maternity leave in such figures, which naturally would affect women only and may explain the difference. But in any case, as an aspiring leader and given the challenges and barriers facing women in policing, it’s worth posing the following as a potential example promotion board question for emotionally-aware Sergeant leaders:
“How would you support an individual on your team in returning to work, after a period of long term absence or maternity leave?”
Local Policing – Response, Neighbourhood, Patrol
As with the rank information earlier, the function in which officers are placed by Chief Officers give an indication as to their priorities. Response Policing Week begins on 24 June, while Neighbourhood Policing Week (as per my podcast at the time) was in January. This is an area of policing seen by many as the bread and butter of keeping the peace, dealing with everything as it comes into the front end of the force. The Police Federation describe it as ‘the backbone’ of policing. Indeed it’s where most student officers are initially deployed and is the launchpad to other careers around the organisation.
“We are joining police forces across the country [in Response Policing Week] to celebrate the hard work, dedication and bravery of those who respond to calls from the public and confront criminals day and night.” – College of Policing
“Response policing is the backbone of the UK’s police service.” – Police Federation
Is the launchpad too strong however? There’s a clear strength of feeling borne out in Oscar Kilo surveys, Police Federation communications, social media, and in-force discussions/debates, not to mention all the intel I hear from clients in confidence, that response and local policing is unfortunately always the ‘poor relation’ in terms of prioritisation of resources.
Whether that’s from continual depleting of resources by creating new ‘specialist’ teams to try and deal with demand differently, or something else, many operational cops in stations are left wondering: Where did half the team go that used to be here years ago?
Let’s see what the stats say for the Met Police. If you wish to do similar with your force, again you’ll find this in the details of the Police Workforce Statistics published by the Home Office. I’ve gone back to 2014 to give a full decade. The Home Office don’t make this kind of analysis easy, often changing the counting method. Here, the functional method was tweaked in 2016, so 2014-2015 are using a ‘best estimate’ of like-for-like comparisons.
Here, Local Policing consists of what you would expect: Those in Neighbourhood, Incident Response, Community Liaison, and Local Command Team roles. And it does seem that the Met Police have chosen to put fewer of its resources in these roles over recent years. The absolute numbers assigned to Local Policing shrank by 21% between from over 14,700 in 2014, to just 11,500 in 2018. Meanwhile, those assigned elsewhere, e.g. to Crime and specialist operational functions grew by the corresponding 3,000 officers. Since Uplift, the numbers have recovered slightly, but are still well below what was previously in a Local Policing function.
Conversely, officers assigned to non-operational support (e.g. Professional Standards, HR and Training, Corporate Development) and ‘Other’ functions jumped from a norm of 2,000 or so to over 3,000. In 2023 this peaked to over 3,500 officers in such roles. Latest Met-published figures to March 2024 put the number of officers it employs in its business area of ‘Professionalism’ at 724, and another 255 in ‘Strategy and Transformation’.
So despite the publicised platitudes, pronouncements and ‘celebrations’, the reality from resource prioritisation by the Met appears to place Local Policing at the bottom of the priority list.
In their latest 2024 strength figures, the Met Police additionally report that 33% of its officers have <5 years’ experience. Given that all the Met’s probationers (there’s currently 2,600 of them) reside in the BCUs, the surge of Uplift has just happened, and that experience tends to move away from BCUs not to it, the proportion of officers with less experience in this ‘backbone’ of Local Policing will no doubt be far higher.
While it’s for the Federation and others to argue the case for ensuring this backbone is strengthened, not crushed, the clues as to the supervisory and management challenges this poses for aspiring Sergeants and Inspectors is clear. For example, consider the following potential CVF-aligned promotion board question or presentation scenario:
“How will you support a relatively inexperienced team to provide a good service to the public whilst maintaining professional standards?”
Even at just this overview level, these functional-level figures certainly provide an interesting insight into how forces are choosing to prioritise their available resources, austerity or uplift aside. I encourage you to explore for your own force. Does anything surprise you? Comment below or get in touch with your own findings!
Police Staff and PCSOs in the Met Police
The above chart tells a familiar story when it comes to the recent perils of civilian staff (including ‘designated officers’) and PCSOs. From the persistent highs of 2007-2011, things soon dropped off a cliff reducing by nearly half overall by 2018.
Since then, there’s been a gradual recovery for staff in the Met, albeit to well below pre-austerity levels (Uplift funding was only available for recruiting officers). Sadly, the role of PCSO in London has been all but obliterated, reducing by a whopping 3,400 FTE (>70%) from its peak in 2010 to its now ‘new normal’ low of around 1,200 staff by 2018.
PCSOs then evidently were the place where the Commissioner wanted to save the most money when times got tough, and there’s no indication it will be raised from the ‘low priority’ pile through reinvestment actions. This corresponds with the lower prioritisation we explored earlier of police officers in Local Policing roles over the decade. This is despite neighbourhoods being the heart of policing…
This array of evidence highlights the mounting strains upon those officers responding to the public and dealing with communities in London.
Volunteering is Dying: Does Anyone Care?
Did you know, it’s National Volunteering week right now? The 40th anniversary of volunteering week is being ‘celebrated’ with warm words by PCCs and Forces alike. But as the workforce stats for the Met Police above indicate, police volunteering is dying, and a decade of inaction clearly speaks louder than words.
Specials reached a record low for 2023, at only a quarter of their peak in the Met Police in 2012. The decline has been going on consistently for a decade and has reduced by another 200 to just 1,300 Specials in the Met’s latest 2024 counts. Clearly there are retention and engagement issues for Special Constables and despite not being paid, this turnover of training and such will no doubt be costly for forces.
What’s the situation like in your force? Or more importantly, consider the following potential promotion board question:
“How will you ensure SCs are engaged with meaningful policing and feel part of the team?”
This is similar to the national volunteering picture, whereby Specials now number just over 7,100, only a third of their 2012 peak of 21,600. Volunteers have also slightly reduced across the country for the time they’ve been tracked since, though most of this national decline comes from the reductions in the Met Police alone.
On a more positive note, if you’re reading this and want to volunteer your time, contributing in a variety of roles to help resolve the challenges to local policing, here’s the Met Police’s volunteering scheme info. For example, there are many benefits to joining as a Special (Volunteer) Police Constable in the Met, including bespoke training, free travel, reduced council tax, and ultimately translation to a salaried officer role.
Summary and Closing…
In summary, there’s much to be gleaned from these figures. While some of this clearly won’t make for joyous reading, that’s the challenge back to you as an aspiring police leader. Whether that’s motivating your teams through turbulent times as a Sergeant, or making difficult resourcing decisions up to Chief Inspector. These are the key points for you to consider as a future police leader, since you’re putting yourself forward to be part of the solution. With this in mind, consider the following presentation scenario aligned to the CVF:
“How will you prioritise your resources to deliver the best possible service to the public?”
I hope you’ve found this deep dive into a particular force (well, the biggest!) a helpful addition to my 80-year overview of police workforce trends in the UK. The full police workforce statistics for March 2024 will be published next month. What will have changed in the Met? I’ll report back here to let you know!
In the meantime (and if this interests you!) please take a look at your own force. What do you notice about your organisation? How has volunteering changed over the years? Where are your Chief Officers prioritising where they place available cops and in what departments?
Let me know in the comments or by email what you find, and I’ll share results in forthcoming free podcasts. And if you’re unsure on how you can put all this into practice by developing your police leadership skills and preparing effectively for an upcoming promotion board, then my digital toolkit is there to help you, 24/7.
Kind Regards, Steve
Want to go further right now? Hit the ground running with your promotion preparation. Get your personal digital promotion toolkit, and/or my Police Promotion Masterclass. Contact me to arrange personal coaching support, or why not also try my podcast for ongoing police leadership CPD.
