63% of those who left the police service pointed to the job’s negative effect on their family and personal life as a critical factor, a new Leavers Survey has shown.

The Police Federation of England and Wales captured the experiences of 2,654 officers who had left the job and discovered that reasons for them leaving, included long/irregular hours, high stress and no work/life balance.

The survey showed 27% of police officers are resigning before reaching pension age, with low morale and poor job satisfaction cited as the main reasons.

More than half of resigning police officers stated their mental health has been severely affected by the job.

74% of resigners cited low morale as a major reason for leaving. 41% of resigners and 32% of retirees pointed to physical health issues as a reason.

60% said understaffing/the inability to meet team or unit demands drove their decision.

Darren Pemble, Chair of Surrey Police Federation, said: “Policing is facing huge pressures at this time with the media continuing their attacks on how we police. This incessant morale sapping exposure to negative police stories is taking its toll.

“Officers are now just fed up with how society see police officers and they are now exiting policing. Figures show that 27% of police officers are resigning before reaching pension age, with low morale and poor job satisfaction cited as the main reasons. We are losing experienced officers who are disillusioned and burnt out.

“We need to do more to support officers as 63% of those officers who have left policing identified the negative effect that policing has had on their family and personal lives as a critical factor. This is happening as we don’t have enough police officers and the ones, we have are having to do far too much with workloads being far too high causing many sleepless nights of worry.

“An easy way to reverse this and work towards improving officers physical and mental health is for greater investment in policing. Forces are still having to save millions of pounds from their budgets. How can policing be so poorly funded? A review into how police budgets are funded is long overdue as Forces cannot be run as a business when lives are at stake.

“We need to invest in police stations and police IT. How much should we spend on policing is a question that needs to be addressed. If we cannot find more money for policing, then policing needs to do less. How do we balance cost versus benefit.”