Sergeant
Every police recruit needs to complete a 2-3 year probationary period on the front line. But after your probation, there’s a huge range of different positions you could progress to, including the role of Sergeant.
Role purpose
The role of Sergeant is the first level of management in policing. You’ll be responsible for a team of constables, exercising day to day, general and technical supervision and providing support to your team.
Here’s a bit more about what being a Sergeant involves:
- You’ll supervise a team, providing leadership and keeping motivation high to ensure effective front line policing.
- You’ll manage your team’s development and be responsible for ensuring their wellbeing and welfare.
- You’ll monitor and manage your team’s performance, developing effective strategies to identify any issues and improve individual and team performance.
- You’ll support your team through assessment processes and devise development plans so they can perform at their best and progress in their career.
- You’ll co-ordinate and control front line responses and investigations, allocating resources, directing activities, managing risk and reviewing progress of investigations.
- You’ll monitor the handling of information, intelligence, evidence and record keeping, ensuring alignment with legislation to enable effective law enforcement and criminal justice proceedings.
- You’ll ensure your team meets all professional standards and all responses are delivered within appropriate policies and legislation in order to achieve the best possible outcomes.
- You’ll support the review and reporting on team expenditure to ensure efficient use of budgets and maximise value for money.
Skills every Sergeant needs
- Strong communication skills and the ability to adapt how you communicate to suit the needs of different people and audiences.
- Good forward-planning and organisational skills so you can allocate work appropriately across your team.
- The ability to be objective when assessing your own and your team’s performance.
- Good problem-solving skills that equip you to identify any issue's cause and effect and how to tackle it.
Ultimately, your role is to provide the kind of leadership that enables your team to work well together and achieve the objectives of your force. You need to be able to inspire your team to perform at their best, whilst offering support to those who need it. You’re there to manage but also to mentor and help your team members achieve their goals in their policing career. Don’t worry, though – you’ll be given all the training and support you need to perform well at Sergeant level.
This is just one way your police career could take you after successfully completing your probation. Find out more about career progression.