Police officer quarterly strength statistics: 31 December 2022

Scotland’s Chief Statistician has published statistics on Police Officer Quarterly Strength, which gives the number of full-time equivalent police officers employed by Police Scotland.

The key findings of the statistics are:

• there were 16,644 full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers in Scotland on 31 December 2022
• police officer numbers increased by 74 FTE officers (+0.4%) in the last quarter from 30 September 2022
• police officer numbers decreased by 473 FTE officers (-2.8%) in the last year from 31 December 2021
• this is an increase of 410 FTE police officers (+2.5%) from the 16,234 FTE police officers recorded at 31 March 2007

The statistics in this release are based upon quarterly returns made by Police Scotland to the Scottish Government, and are a by-product of live administrative processes, generated directly from the HR systems. The data return provides a snapshot of police strength at the end of the quarter. The published police officer figures are sourced from Police Scotland’s personnel records and as such the quality and reliability is good.

The next edition in the series, Police Officer Quarterly Strength Scotland, 31 March 2023, will be published on Tuesday 2 May 2023.

• The publication file (.xlsx) is available to download below.
• Police Scotland Officer Numbers - Police Scotland

Police officer quarterly strength statistics: 31 December 2022

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Excel document

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42.3 kB