Chart: Over 13 years, basic police pay has fallen by 22% in real terms
A combination of government-led changes to pay mean a police constable who has just completed initial training in England and Wales in 2022 is paid about £7,600 less now than they would have been in 2010, once inflation is taken into account. These figures exclude overtime and special allowances, but those are unlikely to have made up for decreasing basic pay.
larger image | annotated R code to produce this chart
Data source: Police Federation, Home Office
Pay for years before 2022 has been adjusted for inflation using the Office for National Statistics preferred CPIH measure. For 2022, the inflation estimate for May (the latest available) has been used.
Matt Ashby
Lecturer in Crime Science
I am a lecturer in crime science at the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science at University College London (UCL). I am interested in crime analysis – particularly how crime concentrates in time and space – in crime prevention and in transport crime.