820,000 rest days – the equivalent of 2,240 years – are owed to Police Officers in the UK
13 May 2026
City of London Police Officers are owed 5,047 cancelled rest days
The Metropolitan Police owed the highest number of rest days to its officers: 215,075 days - the equivalent of 589 years.
The next highest was West Midlands Police, with 59,983 rest days owed to officers, followed by Greater Manchester Police with 51,759 rest days owed.
But Lincolnshire Police had a shockingly high ratio of rest days owed considering the size of the force – it owed an average of 42 rest days per officer.
Other smaller forces with high ratios include Bedfordshire Police, which owed 17 rest days per officer, and Cambridgeshire Constabulary, owing 14 rest days per officer.
Even Chief Constables have spoken up about the high demands facing their officers – last summer alone, officers policed more than 3,000 protests across the UK, leading to many cancelled rest days.
In the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC)’s latest submission to the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB), it proposed a number of measures to clarify how and when cancelled rest days can be re-rostered, including a suggestion to reduce the pay for officers required to work on their rest days.
The NPCC says its proposals protect and promote the taking of rest days and “aim to shift away from a culture that rewards extra hours over wellbeing”.
But the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) has responded to this by launching the ‘Hands Off Our Rest Days’ campaign, warning the Government that the police chiefs’ proposals would weaken protections around officers’ rest days.
Commenting on the latest FOI figures, PFEW Chair Tiff Lynch said: “Unsustainable workloads that put officers at risk are, shamefully, the operating model of policing. These figures lay that bare.
“We will not accept the continued erosion of officer safety and health, nor Chiefs whose only answer to this crisis is to make it cheaper and easier to take officers’ rest time away.
“We have already taken enforcement action against forces failing in their legal duty of care, and we will do so again and again until the message hits home.”
A spokesperson for the NPCC said: “The NPCC is working to shift policing away from a culture that rewards extra hours over wellbeing, and we have made a number of proposals to the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB) designed to protect the ability of officers to take rest days, to support and promote their welfare, as well as to bring clarity and reduce inconsistencies between forces."
Our Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request found that Constables, Sergeants, Inspectors and Chief Inspectors were owed 817,884 rest days as of 1 March 2026.
The true figure is likely to be even higher, as four forces – Gloucestershire Constabulary, the Ministry of Defence Police, Surrey Police and Thames Valley Police – were unable to provide data.
