The Datum Report

Occupation 6311 · Caring, leisure and other service occupations

Police community support officers

Half of full-time police community support officers in the UK earn more than £35,748 a year, and half earn less.

Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) support the local police force by patrolling the streets to provide a visible and reassuring presence and to tackle a range of crime and disorder problems. PCSOs are also attached to the British Transport Police who operate the specialised police service for the railway network across Britain.

How people enter it

There are no formal educational requirements although entrants must pass written tests and undergo a medical check including an eyesight test. Nationality restrictions apply and background security checks will be made.

What the work involves

• patrols a geographic area to monitor and deter criminal and anti-social activity and disorderly conduct
• assists police officers at crime scenes and major events
• carries out house-to-house enquiries
• provides crime prevention advice and helps to support victims of crime
• may detain someone pending the arrival of a police officer
• may direct traffic and arrange for vehicles to be removed

Also called

Civilian support officer (police service) · Community support officer (police service) · Police community support officer

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for police community support 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. 8 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

Parking and civil enforcement occupations