Careers Spotlight: Police

There are roughly 135,000 police officers in the 43 police forces across the country.

The opportunities for career progression in the police service are huge. If you are joining as a Police Constable, as most recruits do, you’ll be able to progress up through the following ranks once you’ve successfully completed your probation:

• Police Constable / Detective Constable – this is the starting rank for police officers.

• Sergeant – the first supervisory rank, most sergeants are responsible for a team of constables.

• Inspector – uniformed inspectors typically oversee a shift of constables and sergeants. They also take charge of major incidents in their force area.

• Chief Inspector – this role can vary from force to force but a Chief Inspector often acts as the senior police officer in larger towns, overseeing large teams such as investigations or operations.

• Superintendent – at this senior management rank, a Superintendent would usually be in charge of a section of a Command.

• Chief Superintendent – typically responsible for policing of a geographical area of their force.

• Assistant Chief Constable – ACCs as chief officers are mainly responsible for a specific function or business area within their police force, for example, Investigation or Operations.

• Deputy Chief Constable – they act as deputy for their Chief Constable, handling the running of the force and supporting the Chief Constable.

• Chief Constable – these officers are responsible for the effective running of their force.

Because of its size, the Metropolitan Police has five ranks above the chief superintendent rank – Commander, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner and Commissioner.

What could your career in policing look like?

Policing is a vast and varied career choice and, once you’ve successfully completed your probation period, you can also apply to work in a huge variety of roles and specialist units, including:

Community policing - covering roles like neighbourhood policing, response policing and roads policing

Investigation - ranging from detectives, crime scene investigators and family liaison officers to forensics and domestic abuse investigators

Intelligence - roles include surveillance analysts, covert operatives and communications data investigators

Operational support - roles range from control centre and custody officers, to specialist roles like dog handler or mounted police, police diver, firearms officer and football spotter

Boosting your CV

In this section we have looked at how boost your CV. A good CV will get you noticed and invited for an interview, but no further. The key to a successful interview lies in soft skills. Over the next few editions we will look at each of the different soft skills and how you can improve them

Communication

Communication, while complex, is a vital part of succeeding in just about every avenue of life. It’s one thing to know what’s right or know what to do, but it’s another thing entirely to be able to clearly communicate that to the right people at the right time. Developing strong communication skills, both verbally and in writing, is an essential soft skill for the modern workplace.

Interpersonal Skills

Closely related to communication, interpersonal skills are all those intangibles you need to relate well to others, build relationships, and generate the necessary rapport to make inroads and win discussions.

If you’ve ever been in a discussion and emerged from it unsure how the other person convinced you to agree, you were dealing with someone with exceptional interpersonal skills. While some people are born with naturally strong interpersonal skills, everyone can learn strategies to improve in this area.

Current Opportunities

This month we have opportunities in aviation, accountancy and construction

This month there is an opportunity for Year 9 and Year 10 students to have a day at the Elstree Aerodrome learning about the aviation industry and have the opportunity to fly in a light aircraft. To be considered for this students need to have completed the modules on the Air Leagues e-learning platform which can be found by clicking on the image below. If you haven't logged in already click on forgotten password and enter your school email address

Building Careers Live:

It is an exciting and interactive event, like no other in the UK construction industry, showcasing all the trades in a unique way.

Our ambition is to BUILD a community that INSPIRES the next generation of tradespeople and in doing so endeavour to UNITE the trades to change the way the UK perceives the building industry.

All the careers involved in the construction industry will be represented, and we are uniting the best tradespeople so that the talent of tomorrow can speak to the experts of today. They will be ready to give advice, practical demonstrations and a hands on experience.

Booking details can be found by clicking on the button below. Tickets for students are free.

Accountancy Academy: Online for 2022

Every year First Intuition centres across the country invite local students to come along to one of our FREE Accountancy Academies to find out more about our industry and the careers available within it. Our popular Accountancy Academy will be returning this year and is open to students wishing to find out more about this industry and the exciting career options available within it. This year our Accountancy Academy will take place online via a series of short webinars. These sessions are open to all and will be beneficial to any school or college student interested in pursuing roles in accountancy and finance.

5th, 7th, 12th, 14th, 19th July 2022

All sessions will run from 4.30 pm until 6.00 pm