In 2025/26 the amount budgeted for gross expenditure for police services in London was approximately **** billion British pounds. As can be seen, the budget for London's police decreased by *** million GBP from **** billion GBP in 2012/13 to **** billion GBP in 2013/14. It remained around this figure in 2017/18, but increased slightly to **** billion in 2018/19, and more substantially in 2019/20 to **** billion British pounds.

Public spending on the police service in the United Kingdom rose to 28.8 billion British pounds in 2024/25, the highest amount spent during the provided time period. Between 2010/11 and 2013/14 the amount of public money spent on the police fell from 18.6 billion pounds to just 16.4 billion pounds, due to the austerity policies followed by the UK government at the time.

London's Metropolitan Police is by far the largest police force in the United Kingdom with 34,315 officers in 2024. At 16,356 officers, the Scottish police force has the second-largest force in terms of officer numbers, followed by Greater Manchester police force, which had 8,141 officers that year. Although the Metropolitan Police are responsible for policing most of Greater London, the City of London Police force covers the historic center of London, which is around one square mile in size, and numbered 995 officers in 2024. Crime in the UK In 2023/24 there were approximately 6.66 million crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales, compared with 6.74 million in 2022/23, which was the highest number of crimes recorded in a reporting year since 2002/03. Although crime declined from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s, there has been a noticeable increase in crimes from 2014/15 onwards. In terms of the crime rate, England and Wales had the highest in the United Kingdom, at 89.7 offences per one thousand people, compared with 55 in Scotland, and 52.3 in Northern Ireland. Cuts to policing reversed in recent years Between 2010 and 2017, the number of police officers in the UK fell from 172,000 officers to just 150,000. During this same period, the London Metropolitan Police saw officer numbers decline by around 2,000 officers. The fall in police personnel was a result of UK-wide funding cuts, during this time period, with police expenditure falling from 19.3 billion in 2009/10 to 16.35 billion by 2013/14. This policy has since been reversed, with the last UK government recruiting officers and generally spending more on the police service. As of 2024, there were 170,500 police officers in the UK, and government expenditure on the police service was 27.3 billion British pounds.

The crime rate in London was 106.4 crime offences per thousand people for the 2024/25 reporting year, compared with 105.8 in the previous year. Between 2015/16 and 2019/20, the crime rate in the UK capital increased in every reporting year. The sudden drop in 2019/20 was due to the COVID-19 pandemic causing a sharp reduction in certain types of crime, such as robbery and theft. Crime patterns in the capital Overall there were 951,803 crimes reported by the police in London in 2024/25, compared with 938,020 in the previous reporting year. Types of crime that have increased recently include violent crimes, shoplifting, and theft from the person offences. One positive is that the number of homicide offences in London has fallen to much lower levels than seen in the late 2010s. Additionally, the Metropolitan Police force area has a lower crime rate than many of the UK's other major police forces, such as West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, and South Yorkshire. Police recruitment drive ends era of cuts  The rise in crime in London happened alongside a decline in both personnel and funding for the London Metropolitan Police. Compared with 2010 for example, there were around 3,000 fewer police officers in 2018, while annual funding was reduced to around 3.3 billion pounds between 2013/14 and 2018/19, compared with 3.62 billion in 2012/13. These cuts were due to the policy of austerity that was implemented by the UK government during that time period, but this has recently been replaced by pledges to increase spending and to recruit more police. In 2024/25, the budget for the Metropolitan Police was over five billion pounds, while the number of officers in 2024 increased to around 35,310.

There were ******* violent crime offences recorded by the Metropolitan Police and City of London Police Forces in London in 2024/25, a decrease when compared with the previous reporting year. From a low of ******* violent crimes in 2015/16, violent crime has increased almost every year. This reflects a pattern of increasing violent crime replicated across England and Wales as a whole, with a peak of *** million offences reported in 2022/23. Overall offences also rising The overall crime figures for London also show a trend of increasing crime in the UK capital. In 2015/16 for example, there were ******* crimes recorded in London, compared to ******* in 2024/25. This follows a similar pattern seen in England and Wales, which has witnessed an uptick in crime after reaching historic lows in the mid-2010s. In 2013/14 for example, there were approximately ** crimes per 100,000 people in England and Wales, compared with *****in 2024/25. By contrast, in Scotland, and in Northern Ireland, crimes rates have remained broadly similar to the mid-2010s. Police budgets rising again Due to the austerity policies enacted by UK governments in the 2010s, the amount the UK government spent on the police was effectively frozen between 2013/14 and 2016/17. This policy has since been reversed, with the overall UK police budget reaching **** billion pounds in 2024/25, compared with 16.4 billion in 2016/17. The amount budgeted for the Metropolitan Police by the Mayor of London for 2025/26 was **** billion British pounds, a significant increase on the **** billion budgeted in 2018/19, but slightly lower than in 2024/25.