Professional Policing
University of Portsmouth
UCAS Code: M392 | Bachelor of Science (with Honours) - BSc (Hons)
Entry requirements
A level
112-120 points from 3 A levels.
112-122 Tariff points from the Access to HE Diploma.
Cambridge Pre-U score of 54-56.
GCSE/National 4/National 5
3 GCSEs at grade C or above to include English and Mathematics/3 GCSEs at grade 4 or above to include English and Mathematics.
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
29 points from the IB Diploma. 655/754 at Higher Level - 29 points from the IB Diploma. 664 at Higher Level.
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
H3,H3,H3,H3,H4-H3,H3,H3,H3,H3
Acceptable when combined with other qualifications.
Acceptable when combined with other qualifications.
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
112-120 Tariff points.
T Level
UCAS Tariff
112-120 points from 3 A levels, or equivalent.
112-120 points from the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate including 2 A levels, plus the Advanced Skills Challenge Certificate.
About this course
This course has alternative study modes. Contact the university to find out how the information below might vary.
**This is a Connected Degree**
Portsmouth is the only University in the UK with the flexibility to choose when to do an optional paid placement or self-employed year. Either take a placement in your third year, or finish your studies first and complete a placement in your fourth year. You can decide if and when to take a placement after you've started your course.
**Overview**
Simulated facilities that replicate situations you’ll face in your job, insights from teaching staff who have law enforcement experience and opportunities to gain experience with local police forces.
Following the National Police Curriculum as set out by the College of Policing, this BSc (Hons) Professional Policing degree prepares you for the emotional, physical and mental demands of a rewarding career in policing and related fields.
You'll gain legislative, policy and procedural knowledge and develop the critical thinking, communication, decision making and conflict management skills you need. You’ll graduate as a qualified police officer and have the foundation to explore a career in law enforcement and criminal justice, or continue your studies at postgraduate level.
**Course highlights**
- Explore crime scenes and situations using virtual reality environments, allowing you to test your skills in a simulated environment
- Build your professional network through our close ties with Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire constabularies
- Get experience of the interdisciplinary work practices you’ll encounter in your career as you study alongside criminology students
- Enhance your CV and apply your skills through volunteering opportunities with local police forces
- Have the opportunity to see other countries’ approaches to policing by spending your placement year at a policing-focused overseas university
**Licensed by:**
This course is a national pre-join degree programme licenced by the College of Policing.
**Careers and opportunities**
A career in policing is an exciting, rewarding way to serve your local community and make a positive impact on society.
Working as a police constable
This degree is an approved entry route into the police services in England and Wales, so you'll be eligible to apply for police constable roles when you graduate (you won’t need to do a graduate conversion programme). This allows you to work in neighbourhood and response policing.
With experience, you can rise in the ranks to roles such as:
- sergeant
- inspector
- superintendent
- chief constable
Working in other police force units
After a 2-year probationary period as a police constable, you can apply to work in specialist areas such as:
- criminal investigation department (CID)
- firearms
- traffic
- intelligence
- child protection
- fraud squad
- drug squad
This course also gives you the knowledge and skills for roles in security organisations such as the National Crime Agency.
Modules
Year 1
Core modules in year 1 currently include:
- Crime and Society
- Criminal Justice
- Essential Skills for Criminologists
- Evidence-Based Policing
- Introduction to Policing
There are no optional modules in this year.
Year 2
Core modules in year 2 currently include:
- Community Policing and Public Protection
- Complex Investigations
- Mental Health and Wellbeing
- Policing and Society
- Researching Criminology
- Victims of Crime: Key Players in the Criminal Justice System
There are no optional modules in this year.
Year 3
Core modules in year 3 currently include:
- Applied Policing and Investigation
- Dissertation (Criminology)
- Management of Criminal Investigations
- Policing: Communities, intelligence and Information
- Policing: Law policy and practice, Response Policing
There are no optional modules in this year.
We use the best and most current research and professional practice alongside feedback from our students to make sure course content is relevant to your future career or further studies.
Therefore, some course content may change over time to reflect changes in the discipline or industry and some optional modules may not run every year. If a module doesn’t run, we’ll let you know as soon as possible and help you choose an alternative module.
Assessment methods
You’ll be assessed through:
- Essays
- Reports
- Oral presentations
- Group projects and portfolios
- Seminar participation and engagement
- Thesis/major report
You’ll be able to test your skills and knowledge informally before you do assessments that count towards your final mark.
You can get feedback on all practice and formal assessments so you can improve in the future.
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
The Uni
University of Portsmouth
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Politics
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Sociology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Law
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Politics
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
The numbers of people taking politics degrees fell sharply last year and we'll keep an eye on this one - it can't really be because of graduates getting poor outcomes as politics grads do about as well as graduates on average. Most politics or international relations graduates don't actually go into politics - although many do, as activists, fundraisers and researchers. Jobs in local and central government are also important. Other popular jobs include marketing and PR, youth and community work, finance roles, HR and academic research (you usually need a postgraduate degree to get into research). Because so many graduates get jobs in the civil service, a lot of graduates find themselves in London after graduating. Politics is a very popular postgraduate subject, and so about one in five politics graduates go on to take another course - usually a one-year Masters - after they finish their degrees.
Sociology
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
We have quite a lot of sociology graduates, although numbers fell last year. But graduates still do pretty well. Most sociology graduates go straight into work when they complete their degrees, and a lot of graduates go into jobs in social professions such as recruitment, education, community and youth work, and housing. An important option for a sociology graduate is social work - and we're short of people willing to take this challenging but rewarding career. Sociology is a flexible degree and you can find graduates from the subject in pretty much every reasonable job — obviously, you don't find many doctors or engineers, but you do find them in finance, the media, healthcare, marketing and even IT. Sociology graduates taking further study often branch out into other qualifications, like teaching, law, psychology, HR and even maths, so don’t think a sociology degree restricts you to just one set of options.
Law
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
Law graduates tend to go into the legal industry, and they usually take similar routes. Jobs are competitive — often very competitive - but starting salaries are good and high fliers can earn serious money - starting on over £24k in London on average. Be aware though - some careers, especially as barristers, can take a while to get into, and the industry is changing as the Internet, automation and economic change all have an effect, If you want to qualify to practise law, you need to take a professional qualification — many law graduates then go on to law school. If you want to go into work, then a lot of law graduates take trainee or paralegal roles and some do leave the law altogether, often for jobs in management, finance and the police force. A small proportion of law graduates also move into another field for further study. Management, accountancy and teaching are all popular for these career changers, so if you do take a law degree and decide it’s not for you, there are options.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Politics
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£20k
£23k
£27k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Sociology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£25k
£25k
£29k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Law
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£20k
£25k
£29k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):
We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.
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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
