Leaving the police service

[Chops11]

I've never posted before but I'm hoping someone can offer me some advice. I've been a police officer for 16 years. It's all I've ever done (aside from an admin role while waiting to join).

I'm completely disillusioned with the role and have lost any passion I had for it. Morale is awfully low and the government appear to have nothing but contempt for us. I've moved around for the past four years into various different roles to broaden my skill set but it boils down to the fact I don't want to be a police officer any more.

I'm now mid thirties, I have a partner and three children and am at the top of my pay grade. The issue I have is that I don't have a degree and would be unable to take a large pay cut (especially with the cost of everything going up). I'm finding my options are fairly limited but life is too short to be miserable at work. I'm very capable and left school with very good grades but I have no external qualifications beyond A-level.

Has anyone managed to get out? What did you do? I'm unsure of how my skills will translate outside of the police world. I've written my CV using guides from Google but it looks really uninspiring. I feel very stuck and I'm not sure where to start.

Any advice would be welcome.

Have you thought about working for organisations with some kind of investigative function? So a lot of regulators do this to some extent for example - trading standards, NMC, GMC, HMRC - that sort of thing?

Are you a PC or DC? Or further up the ranks? Do you have any specialist training like financial investigation etc?

I'm not in the police force and no nothing about it but a woman at my work (financial) joined who was a detective for some years. She joined our company and did some training with us and she is now head of finance compliance. (Reports / works with FCA)

I don't know what she was paid before but she is paid well here. She's senior management. Came in at consultant level and 18 months on she's senior management in her department. A lot of her job is investigating and problem solving in regards to underwriting and finances.

I know several Police colleagues who have left the Force in similar circumstances and they've had no issues finding work because lots of the skills are transferable. Some I know have gone on to work in schools as welfare officers, working for local authorities investigating benefit fraud, re-training as a Health and Safety Inspector (training provided on the job) which they got because of their previous experience with investigating and statement writing. Someone is now teaching at a local college which offers an introductory course to crime and investigation, though they had no prior teaching experience.

You don't say if you're a PC or if you are a higher rank- if you're sergeant or above, you have managerial experience which transfers to lots of roles and which employers find invaluable.

Think about all the skills you've learnt as an officer- communication and people skills, able to deal with a diffuse difficult or challenging issues, computer literacy, experience investigating and writing reports, likely to have to juggle several investigations at once which shows good organisation and time management. Lots more to list here but just think about how your police experience translates into 'real life'- there's loads but you are just thinking with a Police mindset.

If you see roles that ask for qualifications or degrees but you feel that you fit a lot of the other criteria, apply anyway- I know a few colleagues who did this and did get the job because they had so many other qualities, experience and good points to bring than just a degree.

Best of luck to you- 16 years is a fantastic length of service and you should be proud of everything you've achieved.

I am sure that education - Learning Supervisor, secondary - would snap you up, but it is ill-paid (16 k per year actual - spread over 12 months as term-time only).
You have transferrable skills in keeping order, maintaining discipline, encouraging responsibility, accountability, mutual respect.
Varied job - each day different. You have to have reasonable ICT skills and presenting skills (power points). You need resilience though as kids can be ruthless

Can you bear to stick it out until you have gained more qualifications by part time study?
I left after 22 years and my income has halved. This isn’t an issue for me as children are adults.

Bank internal investigations or financial crime functions have many ex law enforcement. Salary £40k ish

We have a lot of ex-police and fire service at my work. Also a lot of ex-prison service.

I'm a train driver.

Someone I met through my hobby, has recently left the firearms dept in the Met and started as a trainee driver after talking to me about it.

I've known police officers move into adult social care/ mental health. V useful from a safeguarding perspective.

Local Authorities (Councils) employ a lot of ex-Police in investigatory and enforcement roles, as pp have said: think services like Legal (RIPA, Trading Standards, Revenues & Benefits), Environmental Health, Traffic and Transport, Housing, Waste Management, Security & Buildings Management, etc.

They're looking for transferable skills like being able to collect evidence, write reports, give evidence in court, interview under caution, investigate best value disposal of cases, understand the law, engage with the public and work in a team.

Best of luck.

Thank you everyone, there's a lot of good advice here and food for thought. I'm a PC, promotion within the police has not appealed to me as I've seen the amount of stress it causes people without a decent renumeration in pay. Operations/keeping actively busy has always appealed more to me than becoming a detective.

I would like promotion away from policing however. I have an award in education and training but no financial qualifications anymore (previously held a financial intelligence accreditation but this has since lapsed).

I feel I have a lot to offer but as a pp said, it's hard to see past that police mindset. I've read job after job advert assuming my application wouldn't be considered so I clearly need to rethink that mindset. My children are still young (ranging from 3-11 years) so a large pay drop isn't feasible at this moment in time but I would take a small drop in order to build it back up in time. I could possibly stick it out to retrain but I'm burning out!

Could you look into civil service roles. Maybe fraud, compliance or border force would be especially pertinent with your background?

What area of policing do you enjoy? I know a neighbourhood officer who moved into housing and is quite happy. If finance is your thing could you go into banking? Or is there a safeguarding role you could take up?
As others have said, you will have picked up a lot of transferable skills.

I was a Police Officer for 6 years before I left, I decided that I didn't want to juggle childcare and family life with that liked of job. I initially went into education working as support staff in secondary schools and loved it. I then ran a business for 12 yrs, the work-life balance was worse than it was when I was in the police, it was more stressful, and the public were worse than what they were when I was in the Police! I had no statutory rights, no support I could go on. I handed the business over, guess what I'm doing now? I have re joined the police. Many think I'm mad, but having hated running a business so much I vowed I would never do another job that didn't suit me and made me that miserable again and the only one I could think of was the police.
Education is a good bet, but to be honest, it's a gamble, you just dont know how it will turn out. I was offered a career break back then and turned it down, with hindsight I wish I'd done it.

I’ve known officers leave and join a number of different organisations in different functions but they weren’t moving from a response team. I’m only a DC but I’ve worked in a number of different areas of business that would naturally have led into outside functions. Child protection and training were the roles I had with the most scope I think. ( I had lots of experience with partnership work and delivered very specialist courses in child protection areas). Other areas like public order or ceremonial planning I can see transferring. I’m sure you have lots of skills but take a lot of them for granted but maybe a sideways move within the police would help at this stage. Perhaps a career coach could help you identify the areas to develop.

Oh I’ve just seen that you have a training qualification. I did a PGCE ( post compulsory education) while working as a trainer. I think you’d find training opportunities in conjunction with your practical experience but I don’t know about pay scales.

Not well paid, but I believe chemists and funeral directors like ex-police as their drivers.

@doingitforyorkshire that's an interesting perspective! All the best to you re-joining, you have my respect and I hope it brings you what you're looking for. I'm conscious the grass isn't always greener but after having tried a few sideways moves in the last few years, I'm not finding anything that motivates me to stay. I'll always strive to do a good job but inside I really dislike going to work.

I've been considering completely changing careers and re-training in something entirely unrelated to policing/public sector. I've fallen into a wage trap though, I don't want my children to go without.

You could ask this question on Reddit. There's a sub called PoliceUk with 60k members, most serving and I know a lot are looking to get out.

There was a post recently about morale. Rate your morale 1-10, I think the highest somebody said was 5!

I work for the nhs and the lady who heads up clinical governance is an ex-police officer have you considered that?

I've been in 14 ish almost 15. Was a dc for over11 year, recently promoted and gone back to uniform
Looking to leave too and have been applying for loads within success. Paid a fortune for my cv but I've amended it based on speaking to people in areas I'm interested in
Join blue light leavers on Facebook. Admin called andy is on leave atm so cant accept anyone yet but he has a load of blue light leaver podcasts online you can listen to. Also get on LinkedIn. There are jobs teaching police at uni too.