Report Detail

Background

This report provides a high-level assessment of Police Scotland’s workforce. It reviews how the workforce has changed over the last year and considers what those changes mean for the organisation’s ability to meet current and approaching demand.

The report brings together information on workforce numbers, recruitment, attrition, workforce deployment, demographics and capability.

The report should be considered alongside the 2025/26 Year End Strategic Dashboard Thematic Report, which was presented to the SPA People Committee in June and includes full year people metrics and five
year trends where relevant. It should also be considered together with the Equality & Diversity Employment Monitoring Report 2025/26 due for presentation to members in December 2026 which provides full details of Police Scotland’s workforce demographics.

Workforce Overview

On 31 March 2026, the full-time equivalent (FTE) of Police Scotland workforce was 22,406.9, a decrease of 66.3 FTE compared with the previous year. This is a combined total of police officers and staff including SPA.

Police Scotland is further supported by Special Constables (369) and Youth Volunteers operating via a national governance structure.

People v Budget

Since 2021, budget pressures have seen police officer numbers reduce to between 16,500 / 16,600 with the FTE position for police officer being 16,430 on 31 March 2026 (-0.94%).

During the 2025/26 financial year, the variance between actual officer FTE and budget allocation averaged at -0.7%, which represents the number of leavers who exited the organisation between bi-monthly probationer intakes.

There were 5,976.5 FTE staff employed in Police Scotland and the SPA on 31 March 2026, this is 56.23 FTE higher than last year. Most of which can be attributed to workforce modernisation within Contact, Command and Control (C3) and the National Firearms and Explosive Licensing Unit, where non-warranted police officer roles were replaced by police staff.

Workforce Size & Shape

The table below represents the distribution of the overall workforce across functions. The comparison is based on the FTE position at the end of March 2026 and March 2025.

The overall size of our workforce has seen little change in the past year, but there have been, and will continue to be, changes to the shape of our workforce as we modernise and future proof our service delivery. Over the last year:

C3 has implemented phase two of planned workforce changes to the Area Control Room function, 34 police officer roles have been replaced by police staff equivalents, totalling 79 role conversions in the last two years.

Policing for our Communities (PFOC) which consists of three interdependent projects aimed at strengthening frontline policing are underway.

Phase one, Enhancing Community Policing project which has redesigned Local Policing operating models, has been rolled out in four divisions with the remaining nine being rolled out by the end of the financial year. An analytical tool which applies data science with demand and productivity insight has been developed. This has resulted in the redistribution of divisional resources within the local policing arena to aid implementation and at project end will result in the reparenting of local policing divisional resources to better match demand.

Phase two, Investigations and Safeguarding Project will begin implementation this summer, again changing the shape of the organisation through the creation of regional hubs to reduce duplication, silo working and enhance working practices across local policing Criminal Investigation and Public Protection specialisms.

Phase three, Frontline Services Support Project, working closely with the wider Enabling Services Review around crossover activities within Business Support Units, will deliver a modern, more effective operational policing support and enabling services function, maximising technologies, appropriately matching resource to demands, and better balancing workforce mix to strengthen frontline policing and best support operational service delivery. Work has already begun with the creation of a National Firearms and Explosive Licensing function which saw the reparenting of local policing officers to a national Corporate Services function, together with 25 police staff. Similarly, the national Dangerous Dog Unit was formed, reparented from local policing to Corporate Services.

Legislative changes in relation to driving specialisms, came into effect earlier this year; to ensure compliance, resources were reparented to our Learning, Training and Development delivery function within Corporate Services to meet this new training requirement.

A dedicated retail crime unit was established, following funding from the Scottish Government. The Retail Crime Taskforce will address the rise in offences and focus on the prevention of retail crime, as well as enforcement against offenders.

Restructures across functions have also taken place to better align resources and make better use of skills and specialisms i.e. HR, Finance, Fleet and Digital restructures, creation of Cyber and Fraud Unit. As have the temporary allocation of resources to meet short term demand i.e. Commonwealth Games planning team, Professional Standards National Conduct Unit which are also captured in the FTE figures in the above table.

Workforce Flows

Established processes to support our workforce are in place to deliver operating models that allow flexibility to react to and manage known and unplanned demands.

Our workforce planning cycle focuses on four key elements:

Recruitment

Promotions

Succession Planning

Attrition Forecasting

Workforce Profile

The Equality & Diversity Employment Monitoring report 2025/26 provides full details of Police Scotland’s workforce demographics as at end March 2026. Below is a summary of our workforce profile in terms of sex, average age and length of service.

Since 2022 there has been a 2% increase in the proportion of female police officers. On 31 March 2026, females represented 35% of the police officer workforce. Female officers are more prevalent in constable ranks, particularly in the detective arena, where 44% of detective constables are female. That said, recent recruitment of senior officers has helped in bringing a more representative balance to chief officer ranks, with 39% of Chief Superintendents being female and 40% female representation at ACC level.

The proportion of female and male police staff has remained consistent. Police Scotland’s staff workforce continues to be predominantly female (62%), with the highest proportion of male representation in Corporates Services (46 %) and the lowest in local policing divisions (21%).

The 2022 Census for Scotland identifies that 51% of the population are female and 49% are male. Overall Police Scotland’s workforce is 42% female and 58% male, a 9% differential which shows an improvement in diversity.

The average age of a police officer continues to be 39 years old with the 35-44 age group remaining the most common age group. For police staff, there has been no change to the average which is 46 years old with the 45-54 age group consistently being the most common age group, closely followed by the 55-64 age group. Police staff tend to work beyond the earliest retirement age of 55, whereas most officers retire between the age of 45-54.

The average length of service for police officers and staff is 13 years. For police officers, 57% have less than 15 years’ service, with the remaining 43% having more than 15 years’ service. The 15-20 years bracket has the highest proportion of officers, with 21% - with most being in the Sergeant and Inspector ranks.

In terms of officer retirement pressures, 79% of the officer workforce is the Constable rank, Sergeants make up 14% of the workforce, Inspectors 5%, Chief Inspectors 1%, and Superintendents and above 1%. There are sufficient levels of eligibility within each rank to ensure a pipeline of future leaders.

Workforce Stability

We continue to attract sufficient talent to manage attrition. Most officers leave the organisation via retirement. In the last two years, there has been an increase in the number of officers resigning. This, however, has not impacted the overall number of leavers which is slightly lower than previous years.

For police staff, retirement is the most common reason for people leaving the organisation, followed by resignation for personal reasons/other employment and end of temporary contracts. As with police officers our forecasting and recruitment continues to support attrition and can flex to manage unexpected demand, therefore there is low risk in this area.

Workforce Outlook

Alongside business-as-usual activity surrounding recruitment, promotions and transfers, which estimates:

1200+ people will leave the organisation.

around 600 will be promoted.

in the region of 475 temporary promotions will be undertaken.

150 secondments (internal and external) will take place.

Over 900 people will transfer to other roles within the organisation.

Over the coming year our workforce planning priorities will also include:

Continued support of Policing for our Communities (PFOC) phase one, as the remaining nine divisions are rolled out by the end of the financial year.

Implementation of PFOC phase two, the revised model for local Criminal Investigation and Public Protection specialisms, will be rolled out within North East and Highlands and Islands divisions this summer.

The Target Operating Model for PFOC phase three is on track to be delivered by October and will link to the wider Enabling Services Review. Work is already underway on the development of a National Crime & Incident Management Unit designed to reduce the burden on local policing divisions while providing national consistency.

Summary

In the last year, little has changed in terms of the size of the organisation, due to budget parameters. However, we will continue to move forward with workforce modernisation and ensuring the current workforce plans are agile and flexible enough to support the organisation’s strategic workforce planning approach that looks at the next three to five years.