Police officer quarterly strength statistics: 31 March 2026
Statistics on police officer quarterly strength, which gives the number of full-time-equivalent police officers employed by Police Scotland.
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 16,430 full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers in Scotland on 31 March 2026
- police officer numbers increased by 14 FTE officers (+0.1%) in the last quarter from 31 December 2025
- police officer numbers decreased by 123 FTE officers (-0.7%) in the last year from 31 March 2025
- this is an increase of 196 FTE police officers (+1.2%) from the 16,234 FTE police officers recorded at 31 March 2007
Police officer numbers have increased slightly, but remain at a much lower level than the equivalent quarter of last year
Chart 1: Total number of Police Officers (Full-time Equivalent) in Scotland, 2007-26
Chart 1 shows the total number of police officers (full-time equivalent) in Scotland between Q1 2007 and Q1 2026. The number of FTE police officers have been on a downward trend between Q2 2021 and Q2 2024, then increased between Q2 2024 and Q1 2025. In Q2 2025 it then dropped back to similar levels as Q3 2024 and has remained around this level since.
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, 30 June 2026, will be published on Tuesday 4 August 2026.
Police Scotland publish Management Information which includes a sub-national breakdown of officers and police staff by division.
The publication file (.xlsx) is available to download below.
