Home Office · Police workforce, England and Wales

Police officers per 100,000 population by police force area

Year ending March 2026 Final

236officers per 100,000 population

Police officers per 100,000 population by police force area was 236 officers per 100,000 population in the year ending March 2026.

  1. Home Office rate
  2. Year ending March 2026
  3. published 22 July 2026
  4. Table H4
  5. row “K04000001 England and Wales
  6. column “Total officers per 100,000 population (FTE)[note 2]
  7. cell value 236.03546748796512

What this measures

Full-time equivalent police officers per 100,000 residents in each territorial police force area of England and Wales as at 31 March, as calculated by the Home Office.

What this doesn’t measure

Officers per head of the daytime or visiting population; the City of London and Metropolitan Police figures use resident populations the Home Office notes are small or heavily commuted into.

Important caveat

Police force area figures exclude officers seconded out to central services and use the ONS police force area codes published with the table. Officers per 100,000 population is calculated by the Home Office from the latest ONS mid-year population estimates and is published only for the latest year in each release; it uses the resident population, and is not published for the City of London, whose resident population is very small relative to the people present in it.

Revision history

No period of this series has been revised since it was first ingested here. Revisions are recorded automatically when a later release publishes a different figure for the same period.

Source

Publisher
Home Office
Publication
Police workforce, England and Wales
Release
As at 31 March 2026, published 22 July 2026
Source file
police-workforce-mar26-tables-220726.ods
File SHA-256
03a63dea0f8dd2cb21fa4cae5e940afc8747aae9a3b028e50a724ae1ba80b396
Retrieved
2 September 2026
Sheet
Table_H4
Table
Table H4
Row
K04000001 England and Wales
Column
Total officers per 100,000 population (FTE)[note 2]
Cell value
236.03546748796512
Geography
England and Wales
Unit
officers per 100,000 population
API
/api/metrics/police_officers_per_100k_by_force · /series · /vintages

Government periods

Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.

Full comparison with chart

Release
As at 31 March 2026 · publication page
Last updated
22 July 2026
Next release expected
July 2027 (estimated from the usual cadence)