Police Now
Are you suitable?
We want to hear from you if you think you have what it takes to work in diverse communities challenged by crime.
Are you a graduate or career changer looking to change lives? If you’re looking for a role with purpose and progression, then whatever your degree background or industry you have previously worked in, our National Graduate Programme could be right for you.
Being a police officer or detective is a demanding but rewarding career. When you know the demands of the role, you can make an informed decision as to whether you are ready for the challenge.
The information below helps you consider what’s needed to be successful on our programme.
Your
Competencies
You make appropriate decisions with a clear rationale and accept responsibility for your decisions. You seek feedback, learn from your mistakes, and reflect to improve and amend your future practices.
You build genuine and long-lasting partnerships that focus on collective aims and not just on your own organisation. This goes beyond just working in teams and with colleagues you see daily.
You understand the vision for the organisation. You use your organisation’s values in your day-to-day activities as a role model to provide inspiration and clarity to your colleagues and stakeholders.
You remain confident during adversity, staying calm and positive under pressure. You recognise challenging situations and take responsibility to overcome them, showing determination and resilience in doing so.
You analyse information, data and viewpoints, and combine the best available evidence to understand the root causes of issues that arise in complex situations.
You have an inquisitive and outward-looking nature, searching for new information to understand alternative sources of good practice and implement creative working methods
You make the effort to understand yourself, your colleagues and all those you serve. You genuinely engage with and listen to others, making efforts to understand needs, perspectives, and concerns.
You communicate messages effectively in the written form by using clear, concise language, appropriate structure, and correct grammar.
You take ownership
You’ll be a credible authority, instilling confidence and trust in others through the quality of your knowledge, skills, presence and professionalism.
You’ll show substantial resilience, working well under pressure in the face of change, with a determined and positive attitude to overcoming obstacles. You need to be able to bounce back quickly from difficult situations and setbacks.
These may come from the public and the incidents you deal with but also internally e.g. resistance to change. You need to be persistent and stay focused on the outcomes you need to achieve. Going into the force, you enter as a member of staff who will be relied on to make decisions and provide guidance. However, this needs to be balanced with humility and a willingness to learn and act on feedback.
You collaborate
You’ll be a clear communicator, with an exemplary clear and effective style of communication, both verbal and written. This highly attentive attention to detail in communication is critical to several elements of the role including gathering statements, writing crime reports and preparing handover information.
You need to be able to present the outputs of your analysis in a clear, thorough and often persuasive way to a wide range of collaborators and stakeholders.
You’ll have to work with different partners and agencies to solve problems, including social services and local authorities.
You seek feedback, learn from your mistakes and reflect to improve and amend your future practices.
You support and inspire
You’ll be organised, manage your time highly effectively and deliver in all situations. You make a sustainable impact, leaving things better than you found them. You will be able to prove your ability to deliver results, often outside your comfort zone – you push yourself hard, using your initiative to get positive results. You have to assess risks quickly and effectively, using your judgement and be willing to take and own a decision based on this assessment.
Things will happen on shift that can mean you suddenly have to respond to a crime, which could then take up the rest of your shift or week.
The workload is demanding and you’ll have to manage many conflicting priorities.
You analyse critically
You’ll notice what others don’t. You will have a methodical approach to solving multiple complex problems, considering all eventualities and risks. You must be curious, objective and willing to delve into data, pull out important points from across different information sources and weigh up options to solve crimes.
You also need to think laterally as to how to overcome problems.
You take and own decisions independently without needing the input of others.
You are innovative and open-minded
You’ll be innovative and open-minded. You must be open to learning and feedback, always striving to improve and develop.
You need to be thorough and accurate in your role, and be able to spot errors or pick up on small details that might be useful.
You must have a willingness to understand and learn about cultural differences and how to utilise this knowledge within your work.
With the ever-changing nature of crime, you will be at the forefront of creating and implementing innovative ways to tackle it; utilising new technology, methodology and research.
You are culturally aware
You’ll appreciate and understand that communities have differences within them, and therefore the individuals / groups that make up that community have varying needs.
In light of this, you will tailor your approach accordingly with the individuals / groups that you interact with, demonstrating your impartiality at all times, but ensuring you do your best to gain their trust.
You will remain adaptable throughout the course of your remit as circumstances unfold in situations.
You are resilient
Regardless of the challenges you will face, you will remain confident throughout, staying calm and positive to provide the best service possible. You demonstrate determination to tackle situations facing you in role and within your community. You recognise when you are placed in such a position and draw on your strengths to work through aspects affecting various members of your community.
When things don’t go as planned, you take the time to understand your own emotions; look to find solutions; and subsequently drive your own self-development. Fundamentally, you will demonstrate the ability to bounce back quickly.
Motivational alignment
You’ll show comprehensive awareness that Police Now’s mission is to make where we live safer, transform communities, turn people into allies, service the public and increase their confidence. You want to contribute to Police Now’s mission, go the extra mile and share thought through ideas on how you could make a contribution.
You’ll be clear and focussed on joining the role and understand why you want this role over others.
You are emotionally aware
You’ll be an empathic connector. You will be able to develop meaningful relationships with an extensive variety of people, allowing you to communicate and persuade effectively. You must be able to demonstrate a genuine interest in, and respect for other people’s opinions.
Self-awareness and high levels of emotional control are also required to handle emotionally charged situations. Police officers work in extremely emotive environments and need to be able to understand other’s emotions and their own in order to build meaningful relationships and trust in the community.
Written communication
You’ll need to produce reports that are effectively structured, which follows set policing procedures and guidelines. You’ll present information in a logical manner and will have the ability to communicate in the written form using concise messages that are easy to understand.
Your values
Transparency
We are transparent in our actions, decisions and communications with both the people we work with and those we serve.
Integrity
We understand and reinforce expectations of professional behaviour and openly recognise good and bad performance.
Impartiality
We must show impartiality throughout all our dealings with colleagues, partners and members of the public.
Public service
We have a responsibility to ensure we act in the best interests of society.
What it takes
Understand the realities, challenges, and values at the heart of policing with Police Now.
Working hours
This isn’t typical 9-5 work.
- Work overtime
- Cover a colleague’s shift
- Move to a different team
- Change shift pattern to support operational requirements
Resilience
You need to remain positive in your approach when experiencing difficult situations.
- Be professional
- Recover well
- Think and act calmly at all times
Impartiality
Transparency
To join the police service, you must declare any previous convictions.
As a police officer you must divulge all convictions, cautions, out of court settlements, disposals, arrests and reprimands, regardless of severity. Failure to do so will lead to the invalidation of your application.
Can you adhere to that?
Accountability
You’ll build trust and approval in communities by your actions.
Upholding and enforcing the law is the primary role of a police officer, behaving with integrity and humanity.
Can you maintain these values?
Core requirements
To be eligible to join our programme you must:
- Have achieved, or be working towards, a 2.2 undergraduate degree by the programme start date.
- Be a British Citizen or have indefinite leave to remain and right to work in the UK*
- Have lived in the UK for at least three years*
Before you apply, make sure to read our full eligibilty criteria.
*Dependent on force
