New analysis by the Police Federation of England and Wales has revealed that the Government’s decision in the Autumn Budget to freeze income tax and National Insurance thresholds until 2031 will pull virtually the entire police workforce into the 40% tax band within six years, an unprecedented shift that hits officers’ take-home pay at every rank including the very lowest paid.

The change comes despite more a decade of below-inflation pay rewards which have meant that police pay is now worth 20% less in purchasing power than it was in 2010. Even though they are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet, officers – even those at the lowest ranks - now face having to pay 40% income tax on some of their salary instead of 20%.

So-called “fiscal drag” has created a stealth-tax spiral that will swallow future pay awards and accelerate the financial pressures already driving the Police Federation’s Copped Enough campaign which calls for officers to be properly compensated for the toll that protecting society takes on them.

Key findings from the Federation’s new analysis

• Almost every officer will be a higher-rate taxpayer by 2030–31

Before the threshold freeze, fewer than 1 in 5 full-time federated officers (around 19%) paid higher-rate tax. By 2024–25, the figure had already surged to over half of all officers.

By 2030–31, under current Government policy, that figure is projected to reach 97.8%—meaning almost every full-time officer in England and Wales will be pushed above the £50,270 threshold.

• Constables are being hit hardest

Constables are the engine room of policing. Yet for the first time in modern history, higher-rate tax will apply to the average Constable.

Our analysis shows that average Constable pay will cross the higher-rate threshold in 2027–28. By 2030–31, 99.8% of full-time Constables are expected to be paying the higher rate—something previously confined to senior ranks.

• “Pay progression” no longer means taking home more pay

Under the Government’s policy, any Constable currently serving in 2025 and progressing normally through the pay scale will automatically fall into the higher-rate band by 2031.

This means almost all mid-career officers will see pay rises immediately absorbed by tax rather than reflected in their bank account.

• Taxation is wiping out the value of pay awards

Average officer pay includes overtime, allowances and specialist payments—because that is what they are taxed on. With the Government’s freeze locked in until 2031, fiscal drag, not real earnings growth, is driving officers into higher tax brackets.

The result: every pay award is worth less the moment it is announced.

This is a structural shift, not a temporary squeeze

Previously, only Inspecting ranks and above routinely encountered higher-rate tax. The Government’s freeze has transformed that landscape. Over the next five years, higher-rate tax becomes the default, not the exception, across every federated rank.

Police Federation CEO Mukund Krishna said:

“This new analysis is stark. Freezing tax thresholds until 2031 means almost every police officer in England and Wales will be paying higher-rate tax within six years. Not because they’re earning more—but because the Government has designed a system that quietly drags them into higher taxation every year. It is a stealth tax in its purest form.

“Higher-rate tax used to apply to senior ranks but now it’s bearing down on the average Constable. Officers tell us the same thing everywhere we go: they are working harder, under more pressure, yet taking home less. This is a system producing an exodus of experience as officers resign in record numbers. The impact on community safety will be stark unless the Government acts with urgency to restore police pay and deliver a truly independent and fair mechanism with collective bargaining and binding arbitration at its heart.

"Our Copped Enough campaign stands for fairness, respect and proper support for policing. This Budget takes us further in the wrong direction.”