Key Takeaways
- Undertake a 3-year Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship, working as a full-time police officer and gaining a Level 6 qualification.
- Respond to incidents, investigate crime, and engage with communities across Herefordshire, Shropshire, Telford, or Worcestershire.
- Opportunity to specialise in areas like Advanced Response, Roads Policing, or Investigations in your final year.
- Potential career paths include becoming a detective, firearms officer, or working in traffic.
About the Role
Work as a full-time police officer and gain a recognised degree.
As a Police Constable Degree Apprentice, you will be working as a full-time police officer while learning crucial skills and practices to become a fully qualified Police Officer. You will also gain a paid-for, degree-level qualification in Professional Policing Practice from our partner university.
What You'll Do
Your learning will take place over 3 years and will include classroom-based learning, coupled with online digital learning, together with practical experience gained working as a police officer on shifts within the policing teams in either Herefordshire, Shropshire, Telford or Worcestershire.
You will join your new colleagues at a local police station to respond to incidents, investigate crime, take part in community engagement and help problem-solve some of the biggest challenges our communities face.
Support
We will support you throughout your learning. You will be provided with a dedicated Tutor Constable, who will be your first point of contact, along with your fellow policing colleagues and your line manager who will guide and advise you during your training.
Specialisation
In the final year of your course, you will have the opportunity to specialise in either:
- Advanced Response, Roads Policing and Communities: to work directly within the communities we serve as a frontline Police Officer.
- Advanced Investigations, Intelligence and Information: if you are looking to become a Detective.
Career Path
At the end of your final year, you will have achieved a Level 6 (degree level) qualification in Professional Policing Practice. You can then set out on a career path that could see you specialise as a detective, firearms officer, dog handler, work in traffic or be the trusted, familiar face of West Mercia Police in the community.
Key Dates
This recruitment campaign is aimed at filling our PCDA intakes during the 2027/28 financial year. You could be eligible for earlier intakes, but to manage your expectations and due to our current pipeline, these dates are the most likely start dates.
How to Apply
To help you prepare, we have set out the application process in the links below, as well as how we can support you through your application. Our 'Becoming a police officer - recruitment process' YouTube playlist contains a selection of videos to offer you advice and guidance on what to expect from the recruitment process when applying to become a police officer.
Please add BOC.Officer.Recruitment@westmercia.police.uk to your email address book and make sure you check your Junk / Spam folders regularly to make sure you don't miss any of our future correspondences.
If you have any queries, read our FAQs or contact the Police Recruitment Team on BOC.Officer.Recruitment@westmercia.police.uk
To begin your PCDA student officer application, please click the APPLY button.