The thin blue line is getting thinner as new police workforce data reveals in the year to 31 March 2026 there were more than 500 fewer officers in England and Wales than the previous 12 months.
New Home Office figures published today [22 July] reveal almost 25,000 police officers have resigned from the service since 2021, wiping out the equivalent of the Government's entire 20,000-officer uplift and exposing a retention crisis recruitment alone cannot solve.
The Police Federation’s own data, collected from rank-and-file members as part of its annual Pay and Morale Survey, has each year provided insight into the reasons behind why officers are planning on exiting the service.
For at least five years, low morale has been the main factor behind them disclosing they plan to resign within the next two years, or as soon as possible, with pay, high workloads and a poor work/life balance at the centre.
Police Federation Deputy National Chair Brian Booth said: "The Government's advisors on pay and conditions have called the treatment of police officers ‘exploitation’ and today's figures show the consequences. Record numbers of officers with decades of knowledge and nouse are leaving policing because they are overworked, underpaid and under threat.
“With more people leaving policing than are replacing them, the thin blue line is going to get thinner and a broken police service is breaking the people it most relies on."
Additionally, nearly half of all officers leaving policing are now departing before reaching five years' service, creating a revolving-door workforce that forces are struggling to retain.
Mr Booth added: "The fact that 3,964 officers with less than five years' service chose to leave policing in a single year is deeply concerning. These should be the future of the service, yet forces are struggling to retain them.
“We are increasingly hearing from officers who say they are being asked to tutor and support new recruits when they have only recently passed their own probation. That loss of experience is creating significant pressure on the workforce and raises serious questions about the long-term sustainability of policing."
Last week, the Government fatally undermined the credibility of the police pay review process after rejecting the Police Remuneration Review Body's recommendation of a 3.9% pay award and instead imposing a lower 3.5% settlement.
The Government’s independent body also stated the “exploitation” of officers is “out of step” with a modern, sustainable workforce model and undermines morale, wellbeing and retention.
Once inflation, higher pension contributions and frozen tax thresholds are taken into account, the average police officer will be no better off in real terms than before the award.
In its evidence to the PRRB, the Federation called for a minimum 7% pay award in each of the next three years to begin reversing years of real terms pay erosion and stabilising the service.
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