How old does someone need to be to join the London Metropolitan Police? Also, how old would they need to be to become a firearms officer? Is there a certain amount of experience a London bobby needs to have before signing up for the armed division?
Are you considering joining?
I assume you’ve checked the Met website? Recruitment standards are bound to be on their somewhere.
http://content.met.police.uk/Home
Anyway I believe the minimum age in most UK police forces is 19, however a lot of them have moved to the model that you must have served in your local voluntary part-time/special officers (I’m from Northern Ireland, we don’t have them and I can’t recall the designation) branch for a couple of years before you can join the regulars.
Also recruitment to the Met is very irregular, until recently there was a pause in recruitment for uniformed officers and I’m not sure if that still stands.
In the Met and most other UK forces (again its different in Northern Ireland) new officers have to serve a two year probationary period before they can apply to specialised posts such as a firearms unit. And again its a matter of whether they are internally recruiting to those posts or not. You could be lucky and move into a AFO post fairly quickly or the opportunity may not come along for some time, and also its not easy to get into its basically going through something like the recuitment process again only for an internal vacancy.
Although policing in the UK is currently in a massive state of flux so that may yet all change. The Met is kind of a force apart in a lot of respects anyway, you may be better considering a ‘counties’ force.
If you ask them that, they’d probably reject you.
I’m an American, guv’nor; I’m not joining the Met. I’m writing a story with a London cop in it.
Crivens!
from http://www.ncalt.com/pre-join-mps/index.html (page 11)
Whats all this then?
[quote=“Disposable Hero, post:2, topic:674861”]
Anyway I believe the minimum age in most UK police forces is 19, however a lot of them have moved to the model that you must have served in your local voluntary part-time/special officers (I’m from Northern Ireland, we don’t have them and I can’t recall the designation) branch for a couple of years before you can join the regulars.
Bolding mine. They’re Community Support Officers, disparagingly known as “Plastic Plods”.
[quote=“kferr, post:8, topic:674861”]
CSO’s are different from Special Constables – they aren’t proper police, but are full time staff. Special Police are actual, but part-time, Police, similar to Territorial Army.
Anyway, the MET website stipulates entry requirements, including age (18), here.