DEGREE GUIDE

Policing

What do Policing degrees involve?

Policing degrees teach you how the police and wider criminal justice system work, combining law, criminology, and practical investigation. You will explore key areas such as criminal law and procedure, evidence and interview techniques, response and neighbourhood policing, safeguarding and vulnerability, intelligence and information management, digital policing and cybercrime, ethics and professional standards, and leadership and decision-making under pressure. These courses help you build strong communication, critical thinking, risk assessment, and report-writing skills, with scenarios, problem-based learning, and simulated exercises reflecting real incidents. Many programmes align with the College of Policing curriculum and offer input from serving officers, workplace visits, or placements with community organisations. While a degree does not always guarantee police recruitment, it prepares you for roles in policing and related fields such as investigations, intelligence analysis, community safety, probation, security, and emergency planning.

Example
Modules

Introduction to Policing: Explore the structure, roles and responsibilities of the police service in the UK, from neighbourhood policing to national security and public order.

Criminal Justice System: Understand how the police, courts and prisons work together. You’ll study processes from arrest to sentencing and the key agencies involved in law enforcement.

Criminology for Policing: Learn about the causes of crime and anti-social behaviour. This module introduces theories that help explain criminal actions and how policing can respond.

Common Degree Names

💼 Placement or work-based learning is built into many Policing degrees through partnerships with local police forces.
🌍 Study abroad is not commonly offered due to UK-specific training requirements.

BSc (Hons) Professional Policing
BSc (Hons) Policing and Criminal Investigation
BSc (Hons) Policing and Criminology
BSc (Hons) Policing and Intelligence
BSc (Hons) Police Studies

These are vocational BSc degrees designed for those considering a career in law enforcement or related services. Some courses follow the Police Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF) for entry into UK police forces.

Level 3 (A-level / IB Diploma (HL) / Scottish Highers)

Policing degrees combine law, criminology, and practical investigation skills. There are no specific subject requirements – universities welcome students from many different backgrounds who are interested in community safety and the criminal justice system.

Subjects that strengthen your application:

Law – useful for understanding the legal system and criminal law
Sociology – helps you understand community issues and social factors affecting crime
Psychology – relevant for understanding human behaviour and communication
Criminology – directly relevant if your school offers it
English Literature or Language & Literature – important for report writing and communication

✨ Any combination of subjects can work for Policing degrees. What matters most is your motivation, communication skills, and understanding of the role. Some courses include interviews – see Other Requirements.

Universities may also accept:

BTEC Extended Diplomas in Uniformed Protective Services
BTEC National Extended Certificates or National Diplomas alongside relevant A-Level subjects
T-Levels — some universities accept via UCAS tariff points, but there is no policing-specific T-Level
IB Career-related Programme (IBCP) with at least two IB Higher Level subjects (ideally three) alongside your Career-Related Study — see above for IB subjects that could strengthen your application

The Professional Policing Degree (PPD) is licensed by the College of Policing. Completing a degree does not guarantee a police job – you still apply to forces separately. Alternative routes include the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship (PCDA). Always check specific course requirements.

Level 2 Qualifications (GCSE or equivalent)

Most courses ask for:

GCSE English Language and Maths (or equivalent) – such as Scottish National 5s, BTEC Level 2, or IB MYP certificates
Some universities ask for around five GCSEs at grade 4/C or above

💬 Interviews

Interviews are not usually required, but some universities may invite you for a short conversation, either online or in person, to learn more about your interest in the subject.

🔍 Work Experience

Helpful but not always required. Experience showing your understanding of community issues is valuable. This could include volunteering with community groups, youth work, customer service roles, or any experience working with diverse groups of people.

🔒 DBS Check

If your course includes placements in police settings, an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check will be required. If you go on to apply to become a police officer, you'll undergo more extensive vetting including security and financial checks.

⚕️ Fitness and Health

The degree itself may not have fitness requirements, but be aware that joining the police requires passing fitness tests and medical assessments.

✨ Eligibility for Police Roles

To become a police officer in the UK, you must be a British citizen, EU/EEA citizen, or have indefinite leave to remain. Some criminal convictions may prevent you from joining the police – check eligibility requirements with your local force.

✨ Personal Statement Tips

What draws you to policing — is it keeping communities safe, investigating crime, understanding how the justice system works, or supporting vulnerable people? Policing degrees combine criminology, law, and practical investigation skills, so think about what specifically interests you. If you've volunteered in your community, worked with diverse groups of people, been involved in youth work or peer support, or simply found yourself thinking about what makes communities safer and why some approaches to policing work better than others, reflect on what those experiences or observations taught you. Reading about how modern policing works, following debates about community safety, or exploring issues like the balance between enforcement and prevention can show you've engaged with the complexity of the role. Admissions tutors want to see realistic understanding of what policing involves — including the challenging and emotional aspects — not just excitement about catching criminals.

If your qualifications don't match the usual entry requirements, there are some other possibilities.

🌱 Foundation Year in Criminology or Social Sciences

Some universities offer a foundation year that can lead into Policing or related degrees. This adds an extra year but provides a route in if you don't have the required subjects or grades.

🎓 Access to HE Diploma (Social Science, Criminology or Public Services)

Widely accepted by universities offering Policing degrees. Choose a pathway with units in criminology, law or social science, and aim for Merits and Distinctions in your graded units.

Is this degree right for you?

Members can explore whether this degree fits who they are:

Skills you'd develop and whether they match your strengths
How this aligns with your interests, motivators and values
Career paths and where graduates end up

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Skills you would develop in X degree

Skill Name

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Is this a good fit for you?

Use the tabs to explore the kind of person that this would be a good fit for. Do you share the Interests, Motivations, Values, Work identity and skills that people who thrive in this course tend to have?

Not sure what these things are? Explore your Identity Tree with us first.

Interests that connect well with a Policing degree

Students who enjoy this degree often share these interests. You don't need to feel strongly about all of them, and interests develop over time. If one or two catch your curiosity, or sound like something you'd like to know more about, that's a good sign.

Fairness, Justice & Rights: The work of policing sits at the heart of the degree, built around the College of Policing curriculum. You'll cover criminal law, evidence, investigations, response policing, safeguarding, ethics and the criminal justice system, studying how police services protect communities and uphold the law.

Society, Communities & How People Live Together: How communities work and how policing sits within them runs through the degree. You'll look at community engagement, urban criminology, vulnerability, marginalisation and the social context that shapes both crime and the police response.

The Mind & Human Behaviour: Investigative psychology, offender and victim behaviour, deception, trauma and memory appear across the degree as core content. The focus is on behaviour as it arises in policing and investigation, rather than the systematic study of mind and behaviour that suits a Psychology degree.

Students who thrive in a Policing degree are often motivated by

Justice and Accountability

You're energised by the work of putting things right: building a legal case, investigating how something went wrong, holding an organisation to account, pursuing a complaint, or challenging a practice that isn't being questioned. You want your effort to change a specific outcome, not just to raise awareness. You're drawn to situations where a careful, determined approach can actually shift what's happening, even when that takes a long time.

Practical Problem-Solving

You're energised by finding fixes to real-life issues, whether they're mechanical, technological, or social. You're motivated by problems you can see, touch, or experience directly, and you get satisfaction from solutions that work in practice, not just in theory. You'd rather build a prototype than write a report about one.

Analysing and Investigating

You're energised by making sense of information, looking for evidence, spotting patterns, and piecing together how things connect. Whether it's pulling apart data, questioning assumptions, or tracing a problem back to its source, you find energy in the process of understanding what's really going on. You'd rather dig into the details than accept things at face value.

Decision-Making and Responsibility

You're energised by being the person who makes the call: weighing up options, choosing between difficult alternatives, and standing behind the decision once it's made. You don't need to manage people to feel this; what you want is to be making consequential choices yourself rather than executing other people's. The weight of being the decider, including when things go wrong, feels like a challenge you rise to rather than a burden you avoid.

Helping or Serving Others

You feel driven to support others directly, whether that's providing care, offering help, or doing work that improves the quality of life of people or animals. The satisfaction of knowing your effort made a tangible difference to another living being is what carries you, more than abstract achievement or recognition. You come most alive when the person or animal in front of you is better off because of what you've just done.

What makes Policing click for the students who love it?

Some people want to be there when it matters, not hear about it afterwards. They want to step in for people who cannot protect themselves, and to put things right rather than only spot what is wrong. Working out what happened pulls them in as well, piecing the events together and weighing what the evidence shows. But what sets them apart is the moment of deciding: sizing up the situation in front of them, making the call under pressure, and standing behind it afterwards.

These are the skills that students who love this degree tend to enjoy using. You don't need to be great at them already, but if they sound like you, that's a good sign.

Skill Name

Skills that suit this degree

You don't need to be great at these already — but if you enjoy using them or want to get better at them, that's a good sign.

Do you stay calm when things get stressful — and trust yourself to make a sensible call even when you don't have all the information?
Are you good at talking to different kinds of people — and do others tend to open up to you or come to you for help?
Do you think carefully about what's fair — especially when someone in charge has power over others?
After something goes wrong or doesn't go to plan, do you find yourself thinking about what you'd do differently next time?

Careers a Policing degree could lead you to

Policing

What do Policing degrees involve?

Example Modules

Common Degree Names

Is this degree right for you?

Skills you would develop in X degree

Skill Name

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Is this a good fit for you?

Careers a Policing degree could lead you to

Example
Modules