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.

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.

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.

United Kingdom UK: Military Expenditure: % of GDP data was reported at 1.835 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 1.839 % for 2016. United Kingdom UK: Military Expenditure: % of GDP data is updated yearly, averaging 3.725 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 6.343 % in 1960 and a record low of 1.835 % in 2017. United Kingdom UK: Military Expenditure: % of GDP data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.World Bank.WDI: Defense and Official Development Assistance. Military expenditures data from SIPRI are derived from the NATO definition, which includes all current and capital expenditures on the armed forces, including peacekeeping forces; defense ministries and other government agencies engaged in defense projects; paramilitary forces, if these are judged to be trained and equipped for military operations; and military space activities. Such expenditures include military and civil personnel, including retirement pensions of military personnel and social services for personnel; operation and maintenance; procurement; military research and development; and military aid (in the military expenditures of the donor country). Excluded are civil defense and current expenditures for previous military activities, such as for veterans' benefits, demobilization, conversion, and destruction of weapons. This definition cannot be applied for all countries, however, since that would require much more detailed information than is available about what is included in military budgets and off-budget military expenditure items. (For example, military budgets might or might not cover civil defense, reserves and auxiliary forces, police and paramilitary forces, dual-purpose forces such as military and civilian police, military grants in kind, pensions for military personnel, and social security contributions paid by one part of government to another.); ; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Yearbook: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security.; Weighted average; Data for some countries are based on partial or uncertain data or rough estimates.

In 2024, there were approximately 170,500 police officers in the United Kingdom, compared with around 155,000 in 2003. After reaching a high of 172,000 officers in 2010, the number of police officers in the UK fell to just 150,000 officers by 2017. Although that trend has reversed since this point, there are still approximately 1,000 fewer police officers in 2023 than there were in 2010. Why did police numbers fall? The fall in police numbers can be linked to a reduction in government spending on the police. In the aftermath of the 2008 recession, the coalition government of 2010 carried out a policy of austerity, vowing to cut government spending across the board. For the police service, expenditure fell sharply, from 19.3 billion British pounds a year in 2009/10 to just 16.35 billion pounds in 2013/14, leading to cuts in personnel. Police service expenditure remained below 17 billion pounds a year until spending started to increase in 2017/18, with the most recent figure of 27.3 billion pounds for the 2023/24 year, even higher than 2009/10. Rising crime from the mid-2010s Between 2002 and 2014, crime rates fell across all four jurisdictions of the UK. Since the mid-2010s, however, there has been a substantial increase in crime, especially in England and Wales, which saw its crime rate jump from 62 crimes per 1,000 people to 89.9 by 2019/20. Although some crimes such as theft stayed at relatively low levels, the number of violent crimes has seen a sharp increase recently, rising from 634,600 offences in 2013/14 to over 2.1 million in 2022/23.

The Home Office is publishing a series of consistent police revenue funding numbers from 1995/96-2009/10. This allows comparison of funding levels over time.

This statistic shows police service expenditure on immigration and citizenship in the United Kingdom from 2009/10 to 2018/19. Over this period, expenditure on immigration and citizenship declined by over 1.3 billion British pounds, falling to 834 million British pounds in 2018/19.

The revenue budget for each local authority in 2011-12, broken down by service category.

This dataset includes detailed information on the 2011-12 spending plans of every local authority in England. It includes both upper and lower tiers of local government (county councils as well as district councils and local authorities) and other types of authorities such as police, fire, waste, transport and parks.

Note that the dataset refers to budgets of local authorities as organisations. It is not always the case that the money is spent in the geographical area that the authority is responsible for.

Spending is broken down by the services provided. The services have been identified using a DCLG coding scheme. These are in most cases an exact match with the CIPFA Service Reporting Code of Practice categories (SeRCOP) (details here). A cross-reference to the SeRCOP codes will be added shortly.

This linked data representation of the revenue budget data is based on a spreadsheet that can be downloaded here. Further commentary, explanation and analysis of this dataset can be found here (PDF).

Public spending on the police in Brazil increased to 137.9 billion Brazilian reais in 2023, the highest amount spent during the forecast period. Between 2019 and 2021, the amount of public money spent on the police decreased from 120.8 billion reais to 117.3 billion reais.

United Kingdom UK: Military Expenditure as % of General Government Expenditure data was reported at 4.658 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 4.676 % for 2016. United Kingdom UK: Military Expenditure as % of General Government Expenditure data is updated yearly, averaging 6.272 % from Dec 1988 (Median) to 2017, with 30 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 10.176 % in 1988 and a record low of 4.658 % in 2017. United Kingdom UK: Military Expenditure as % of General Government Expenditure data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.World Bank.WDI: Defense and Official Development Assistance. Military expenditures data from SIPRI are derived from the NATO definition, which includes all current and capital expenditures on the armed forces, including peacekeeping forces; defense ministries and other government agencies engaged in defense projects; paramilitary forces, if these are judged to be trained and equipped for military operations; and military space activities. Such expenditures include military and civil personnel, including retirement pensions of military personnel and social services for personnel; operation and maintenance; procurement; military research and development; and military aid (in the military expenditures of the donor country). Excluded are civil defense and current expenditures for previous military activities, such as for veterans' benefits, demobilization, conversion, and destruction of weapons. This definition cannot be applied for all countries, however, since that would require much more detailed information than is available about what is included in military budgets and off-budget military expenditure items. (For example, military budgets might or might not cover civil defense, reserves and auxiliary forces, police and paramilitary forces, dual-purpose forces such as military and civilian police, military grants in kind, pensions for military personnel, and social security contributions paid by one part of government to another.); ; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Yearbook: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security.; Weighted average; Data for some countries are based on partial or uncertain data or rough estimates.

In 2023, around 60 percent of spending on the various police forces went to the military police. That year, 47 billion Brazilian reais were invested in the military police.

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.