Pay & Morale

Every year, we invite our 119,000 members to take part in a pay and morale survey, giving them a chance to share their views and inform our work on pay and conditions, and general police morale.

Our pay and morale survey is the only survey to provide a national picture of officers’ views on their pay and conditions, and it is an essential way for us to keep in touch with our members’ opinions in order to represent these to government.

What do you do with the findings?

The survey provides an important source of evidence for our annual submission to the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB), which advises the government on police pay. The PRRB take the views of officers very seriously, and last year - persuaded by data showing how the demands on officers have increased while pay has been suppressed - they broke with government policy in recommending a 2% uplift for all officers.

We also use the survey data to influence other policing stakeholders - for example, the College of Policing on initiatives such as competency-based pay. Also, HMICFRS have welcomed the robust and meaningful data, and now make use of the pay and morale survey findings in their national Police Effectiveness Efficiency and Legitimacy (PEEL) assessment reports. This ultimately benefits federated ranks by ensuring improved management and support systems. 

However, these are only some of many ways in which our members’ feedback via this survey is fed into our national and local policies. The survey also provides our local Branches with their officers’ views on pay and conditions, which helps when they discuss such matters with their chiefs and local MPs.

We also present results from the survey at high profile academic conferences, and have published in peer-reviewed policing journals. We believe that this enhances the standing of the PFEW as an organisation that demonstrates rigour and transparency in our data and policy. Ultimately, this activity helps demonstrate the credibility of the work and makes it harder to dispute findings – however unpalatable other stakeholders may find them to be.

Our 2020 submission

On 7 February 2020 we, in conjunction with the Police Superintendents’ Association (PSA), published its submission to the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB) - the independent team which recommends to the Government what pay increase police officers should receive. In 2020 PFEW and PSA have recommended that police officers receive a pay uplift of 5% across all ranks. Last year officers were awarded 2.5%.

Over the past 10 years, when using the Consumer Price Index (including housing) method of calculating inflation, police officer pay has fallen in real terms by 8.7% - and when the Retail Price Index is used that figure becomes 18%.

2020 PFEW Pay (PRRB) submission

2020 PFEW Pay (PRRB) submission - Annexes

Norfolk Results

Pay & Morale 2022 - 508 responses which represented a 27% response rate.

Pay & Morale 2021 - 362 responses which represented a 21% response rate.

Pay & Morale 2020 - 376 responses which represented a 22% response rate.

Pay & Morale 2019 - 429 responses which represented a 26% response rate.

Pay & Morale 2018 - 407 responses which represented a 27% response rate.

Pay & Morale 2017 - 497 responses which represented a 33% response rate.

Pay & Morale 2016 - 494 responses which represented a 33% response rate.

National 2019 survey

The findings from the 2019 pay and morale survey revealed that only 36% of respondents said they had enough money to cover their monthly essentials, with around one in eight admitting they have had to seek financial support to cover day to day expenses within the last year. Out of the 19,654 respondents to the survey conducted between June and August 2019, almost 75% said they felt worse off financially than they were five years ago.

National 2018 survey

The national 2018 survey found that more police officers than ever (7.8%) have taken second jobs. This is up from 6.3% of respondents in 2017. A staggering 44.8% said they worry about the state of their personal finances either every day or almost every day. And more than one in nine (11.8%) said they never or almost never have enough money to cover all of their essentials. This is up from 11% last year.

The vast majority of respondents, 87.9%, do not feel fairly paid considering the stresses and strains of their job.
This has never been more relevant after the Government’s recent announcement of a derisory 2% pay increase for police from September, which in real terms amounts to an uplift of just 0.85% - police officer pay has now decreased by around 18% since 2009/10.

More than 27,000 police officers - nearly a quarter of all ranks from constable to chief inspector - took part in the survey. The findings provide vital evidence to inform our work on pay and conditions.

National 2017 survey

Evidence from the national 2017 pay and morale survey led to us insisting on an uplift for all officers of 3.4% is considered by the PRRB in 2018. Additionally, we have argued that the 1% element of last year’s uplift that was unconsolidated should now be consolidated and should not affect this year’s uplift.

Read the 2017 national headlines report and full report, individual force reports can be found on our Survey hub.

We also asked Canterbury Christ Church University’s Centre for Policing Research (CCPR), experts in the field of policing research and practitioner engagement, to take a deeper look at some of the issues raised in the 2017 survey. This new external research, which was published in July 2018, is an in-depth analysis of the qualitative data produced by the survey, looking at topics including Direct Entry and Licence to Practice.