Police: Firearms
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many authorised firearms officers were employed by each police force in England and Wales in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Sarah Jones
The Home Office publishes annual statistics on the total number of armed officers and operationally deployable armed officers (which excludes absences) in England and Wales in the “Police use of firearms statistics” publication. The latest data, covering the year ending 31 March 2026, can be accessed on GOV.UK (at the following link):
Police use of firearms statistics, April 2025 to March 2026 - GOV.UK
Data on the number of operationally deployable armed officers, by police force area, for the last 10 years are available in the accompanying open data tables at the link above. Data on the total number of firearms officers are available at the link above from 2021/22 and by police force area from 2022/23 only. Data on total armed officers were not collected prior to 2021/22.
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