The Datum Report

Occupation 1162 · Managers, directors and senior officials

Senior police officers

Half of full-time senior police officers in the UK earn more than £66,690 a year, and half earn less.

Senior police officers plan, organise, direct and co-ordinate the resources and activities of a specific geographical or functional area of generalised or specialised police work. Senior officers of the British Transport Police direct the specialised police service for the railway network across Britain.

How people enter it

Promotion to the rank of inspector can be by qualifying examination and practical assessment. There are no qualifying examinations to ranks above inspector; promotion is by selection only. There are accelerated promotion schemes available as well as the Direct Entry scheme which recruits external entrants with relevant skills directly to senior positions in the police force. All police forces have age restrictions and medical requirements.

What the work involves

• liaises with senior officers to determine staff, financial and other short- and long-term needs
• plans, directs and co-ordinates general policing for an area or functional unit
• directs and monitors the work of subordinate officers
• establishes contacts and sources of information concerning crimes planned or committed
• directs and co-ordinates the operation of record keeping systems and the preparation of reports

Also called

Chief superintendent (police service) · CID officer · Detective inspector · Police inspector

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for senior police officers, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 5 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Officers in armed forces · Senior officers in fire, ambulance, prison and related services