Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many additional police officers have been recruited since July 2024.

The Home Office collects and publishes data on the number of police officers, as at 31 March and 30 September each year in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales.

The latest data on the number of police officers in post is available in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales: 30 September 2025’ release here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-england-and-wales-30-september-2025.

Data as at 31 March each year, going back to 31 March 2007 can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/697255b5a1311bdcfa0ed8f3/open-data-table-police-workforce-280126.ods. However, the growth or decline of police officers in post as at 31 March each year does not necessarily reflect the number of police officer joiners throughout the year. The change in the number of police officers in post is the result of the combined influx of police officers joining and outflow of police officers leaving.

The Home Office collects and publishes data annually on the number of police officer joiners, for the year ending 31 March only and as such, information on the number of joiners since July 2024 is not available. Data for the year ending 31 March 2026 will be published in July 2026.

Information on the number of police officers joining the police service between the years ending 31 March 2007 to 2025 can be found in the ‘Joiners Open Data Table’ here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/697255e4d8adeaf266040568/open-data-table-police-workforce-joiners-280126.ods.