Top 3 Blogs, Podcasts and Videos of 2024

It’s been another busy year for Rank Success providing you with yet more current police promotion and leadership support, including record podcasts. This adds another wing to my library of the best free content you’ll find anywhere on police leadership and promotion, used successfully in the UK and internationally.

As you consider your police promotion ambitions and career goals for 2025, here’s some top content from the past year to support your aspirations…

Top 3 Police Promotion Podcasts of 2024

Police premium promotion podcast benefits

It’s been a record year for my popular Police Promotion and Leadership Podcast. I’ve published over 50 episodes in 2024 alone for your leadership development. These include leadership book reviews, briefings on important police reports, explanations of the new 2024 CVF and Code of Ethics, interviews with Chief Officers, promotion process familiarisation, guidance, tips, and much more.

Here’s how you can subscribe if you’re unfamiliar with podcasts, or unsure how to access my premium content. For just £4.99 per month, you’ll get access to dozens of hours of exclusive content, hear it first, and you’ll be supporting my work to get more interviews with Chief Officers out there.

The subscribership is a fairly new feature. It amounts to a few £hundred a month in total, which may not sound a lot, but has helped fund new content and travel expenses to interview Chief Officers for fascinating episodes that you otherwise wouldn’t hear from. So if you’re a subscriber, thank you, be assured it’s being put to good use, and I hope you’re enjoying the dozens of extra premium episodes I’m doing.

“We’ve never met or spoken, but your podcast & digital toolkits helped me like you wouldn’t believe.” – Iain, passed Sergeant board

Here’s the top 3 picks to give you a flavour of the content over the past year…

1. S4E29 Interview with West Midlands Chief Constable Craig Guildford (FREE)

This is just one of the several interviews with senior police leaders I conducted during 2024. As Chief Constable of one of the largest forces in the UK, Craig kindly shares his perspectives on promotion, values, leadership, standards and more.

It’s well worth a listen, whether you aspire to promotion or are just interested in West Mids Police, and you can read my write-up here. If you’re an aspiring leader in West Mids, you might also like my targeted briefing just for you in episode 4.19.

As I say in my podcast intros, I’m happy to share my platform so please get in touch if you have something interesting to say on policing and/or leadership! You might like for example my most recent and fascinating interview with Inspector Jerone Taylor.

2. S4E20 Policing Culture Part 1: Definitions and Toxic Cultures (PREMIUM)

This episode was the first in a three part series where I pin down the nebulous notion of ‘culture’ and what you can do about it as an aspiring leader. How many of my bespoke 14 signs of a toxic police culture can you ‘tick off’? What good example practice is there?

Can you talk about police culture? How are you improving things? What example evidence do you have? All these questions and more are answered in this popular three-part series. Read my free write-up of the culture trilogy here.

3. S4E32 Overcoming Interview Nerves (PREMIUM)

Interview nerves can be crippling to many police promotion candidates and so severely detrimental to their performance at the Board. This episode kind of followed on from another interview-themed episode, 4.30, which guides you about what to do on the day of your interview.

Whether you just have some general worries about interviews or have significant anxiety about your board opportunity, these premium episodes will help raise your awareness, put your mind at ease and build your confidence.

Top 3 Police Promotion Blogs of 2024

I’ve not just been busy putting out dozens of premium and free podcasts for you to listen to. I know many cops like something to read too, so in 2024 I put out over 40 fantastic blogs, completely for free!

Topics ranged from interview write-ups, officer salary analyses, CVF explainers, police workforce statistics, legal exam results, wellbeing guidance, force-specific blogs, fast track, the future, leadership frameworks, trends like AI in policing and the new SIPP scheme, among many others.

Here’s my top 3 picks in case you missed them…

1. “New” Police CVF 2024?

I published this post in June 2024, soon after the College announced their new CVF. While forces are predominantly still using the 2016 CVF for promotion, things are set to change in 2025 as more get on board.

Complementing a thorough podcast episode released also in June (S4E22), I detail how the “new” CVF might more accurately be thought of as ‘plus ca change’. Successful Rank Success customers will know I encouraged them to simply ignore the confusing ‘clusters’ in the 2016 CVF. So seeing them removed from the 2024 version is proof of the pudding and a helpful change for candidates. Either way, I explain in depth how to get to grips with the CVF in my detailed CVF explainer video.

Behavioural frameworks tend to confuse aspiring officers. To help level the playing field with all the ‘academese’ language, I encourage candidates to explore prior and other leadership frameworks. In other blogs for example I’ve even made an Sussex Leadership Framework ‘SLF’ (based on Sussex officers’ perspectives on good leadership) and demonstrated AI-generated leadership frameworks to support your thinking, CPD, and to help these things sink in.

2. Police Officer Pay Increase 2024/25 vs. Inflation

Police officer salaries is a contentious subject, given the modern pressures on officers, cost of living, and government budget squeezes. In this pay increase analysis blog I detailed the England and Wales pay award, how that compares to elsewhere, changes over time, inflation, fairness, and much more in the way of pay.

On the subject of police pay, you might also like my comparison of UK vs. Australia police salaries, contrasting the two, explaining why many officers are making the move down under, and even comparing the cost of living too.

By the way, the salary page on my website is the only place online you’ll find all latest UK police officer salaries at the Federated ranks in one place and simplified for comparison. When the Police Scotland negotiation deadlock is resolved, I’ll be updating the figures right away!

3. SIPP Promotion FAQs Answered

As with the “new” CVF, Rank Success was first to share meaningful information about SIPP in September 2023. This mysterious new Sergeant and Inspector Promotion and Progression (SIPP) process is being implemented by the College to replace the NPPF. Details were little-known among affected officers until a few FOIs shed some light on things…

Initial designs, timeframes and rationale by the College and NPCC were radical and ambitious. However, SIPP was postponed by several years a few months later, as the College realised the extent of what it was demanding of forces. Since then, several forces backed out of the SIPP trials for undisclosed reasons; presumably relating to SIPP’s increased costs and complexities versus NPPF.

This SIPP FAQs blog was published in November and updated since. It provides a consolidated comprehensive overview of this somewhat moveable feast and seismic changes being proposed and piloted concerning police officer promotion. Simplifying and summarising hundreds of pages of documentation about the controversial scheme, I answer the key why, how, when, what, where, when, and who questions officers have about the future of police promotion.