Pre-Join Police Officer

FIND YOUR BEAT….. 

Protecting your streets

Caring for your community

Taking pride in what you do

Student Police Officer – Pre-Join (Professional Policing Degree Holder) Programme
Starting Salary: £29,907 per annum
Normal working hours: 40 hours per week - working shifts (including evenings and weekends)

Various locations across Merseyside

About a Policing Career in Merseyside Police

Being a part of Merseyside Police is a unique experience.  You won’t just be building better communities, you’ll be building a career that counts. From intelligence to armed policing, however you want to specialise, we’ll help you find your beat.

Through your studies on the Professional Policing degree, you’ll have gained an appreciation about the role of Police Officers being the face and voice in the community. They’re on the ground, speaking to victims, preventing crime and making a real difference. They come from different walks of life, but are united by the same goal – to keep communities safe.

We’re looking for Professional Policing graduates who have already graduated or graduating in Summer 2025 from any of the College of Policing approved Universities – the list can be found here. We want our people to reflect the communities we serve, people who can bring diversity of experience, people who are willing to protect our streets. It’s not always easy, some days will be tougher than others, but the sense of pride makes it worth every second. 

About our Pre-Join (Professional Policing Degree Holder) Programme

You will be employed as a Police Officer from day one and receive a starting salary of £29,907 per annum. The Professional Policing Degree Holder programme is based on the national curriculum for the Police Constable role, therefore applicants on this entry route will enjoy a shorter ‘on-the-job’ training programme. Your probation period will be two years and upon successful completion of this, you will be signed off as a fully competent Police Officer. Our proposed force pre-join programme structure will aim to get student officers to Independent Patrol Status by week 27.

The proposed structure for this programme incorporates induction-based inputs (e.g. standards and values, I.T.), law and police powers refresher sessions particularly in relation to Protecting Vulnerable People, skills development sessions and exercises to assist both the student officers and the force to determine the current knowledge and understanding levels of student officers.

Whilst the current Pre-Join programme is not directly linked to becoming a detective, please be aware, albeit vacancies exist and after completion of your probationary period, you will be able to request participation on our internal CID AIDES programme should you wish to embark on this career pathway to become a detective.

About our commitment to Inclusion

Building a workforce that represents our communities is important to us. Not only do we aim to attract and keep people with the best skills and highest potential, we want to attract people into policing who may not have considered a career with us before. We particularly welcome applications from females and black and ethnic minority candidates, as they are under-represented within Merseyside Police at officer level currently.

To help us achieve a workforce that represents our communities, we have a dedicated Inclusion team who work to encourage people from diverse communities to build their career with our force. They also provide support and guidance throughout the job application process to candidates from under-represented groups. To find out more about the support on offer from our dedicated Inclusion team please click here or contact us at outreach@merseyside.police.uk 

About our Recruitment Process

Due to Merseyside Police’s recruitment requirements for 25/26 and the volume of applications we will receive it may be a while before you receive email correspondence as the Force prioritises entry routes based on earliest start date however, please be rest assured that your application will be reviewed. We ask you to regularly check your emails and respond at your earliest convenience to ensure you have sufficient time to progress towards our intakes.

This campaign is to fulfil our Pre-Join intake in September 2025 and we are now offering this exciting opportunity to apply to be on this programme.

To undertake the Pre Join Programme, you will need to meet the minimum criteria as outlined on our Policing  information page under “Am I eligible to apply”.

• Apply online using the “Apply” button below


• If you have not yet obtained your degree, when applying, please answer "yes" to the question; "do you have a degree in Professional Policing?" and upload your transcript of your final academic year. 


• If you meet our eligibility criteria, you will be invited to complete the National Sift which you will need to complete as soon as possible 


•  If you are successful at National Sift, you will be invited to complete the Online Assessment Centre (OAC) which is currently scheduled imminently or you can email careers@merseyside.police.uk if you already have an assessment pass.


• Following a successful result of the OAC, there are additional stages you may be expected to progress through including interview and will be made a conditional offer and invited to commence pre-employment checks – these include fitness test, biometrics (fingerprints and DNA), medical appointment and vetting.

Your application is important to us, and we will aim to progress all candidates in line with the above with the intention of offering them a place on the September 2025 intake; however, this is dependent on the numbers of applications we receive, and we are unable to guarantee that we can consider you for this intake.

If in the event you have trouble uploading your qualifications / tattoo images, please send them to careers@merseyside.police.uk at the time of application.

Internal applicants must apply externally using a personal email address.

Join us and you'll be on the ground, preventing crime and making a real difference to people's lives. It's not always easy, it's not always predictable, but the sense of reward and excitement is like nothing else.

Nothing beats being a Merseyside Police Officer…