Police Uplift Programme
In July 2019, the government announced plans to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales by the end of March 2023. The Home Office established the Police Uplift Programme to help forces to achieve this. In a first for policing, the Police Uplift Programme works across Home Office, National Police Chiefs' Council, and the College of Policing, with officers and staff seconded from all three organisations.
A 20,000 net increase in officers will ease the pressure on our people and help us to reduce crime and improve outcomes for victims.
This substantial growth of officers has also accelerated plans to improve diversity.
The programme represents a unique opportunity to bring people from a range of backgrounds and communities, and with a range of different skills into policing.
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The Home Office releases quarterly statistics on progress against the 20,000 additional officers as well as force and protected characteristic breakdowns.
In the latest update, the Home Office revealed that 15,343 officers had been recruited as a result of police officer uplift:
Key findings
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provisional data show that there were 144,356 officers in the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales as of 30 September 2022
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this was an increase of 15,903 officers on the adjusted baseline of 128,453
Of these additional officers:
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15,343 have been recruited from funding for the Police Uplift Programme and contributed towards the target of 20,000 by March 2023 (12 per cent above the baseline, with 77 per cent of the target recruited)
- of the 15,343 additional uplift officers, 376 had been deployed to Regional and Organised Crime Units (ROCUs)
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since April 2020, more than 4 in 10 new recruits (42.5 per cent) were female and 11.4 per cent (who stated their ethnicity) identified as ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities)
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244,166 applications to become a police officer have been received since October 2019
Home Office statisticians work closely with police colleagues working on the Police Uplift Programme to collect and quality assure data for these publications. Data is sourced from police forces’ HR systems and is collected on a monthly basis from each of the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales.
Data is published on a quarterly basis in April, July, October, and January, each year, for the duration of this recruitment drive.