Are you a Service Leaver or Veteran interested in joining the police force? UWTSD Professional Policing Pre-Join Degree will give you all the skills and qualifications you need to start your successful career in the police force. 



According to the College of Policing (2018), modern policing is undergoing significant transformation; highly competent Police Constables (PC) are vital to the delivery of an enhanced service to the public.

Being a PC is a physically and intellectually demanding occupation, requiring high levels of emotional intelligence, strong behavioural interpretation skills and an ability to analyse and resolve rapidly evolving events.

The College of Policing designed the Police Education Qualification Framework (PEQF) to professionalise the police force and to ensure consistency across all forces in England and Wales.

The PEQF developed three key routes into becoming a Police officer:
The Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship (PCDA and the Degree Holder Entry Programme (DHEP). To enter this route you would need to be employed by a police force before starting. UWTSD are the academic provider for the PCDA and DHEP for South Wales Police and Gwent Police, which went live in March 2019.

The Pre-Join degree in Professional Policing is to be achieved prior to formal recruitment to the police service, and is the third entry route into the police force. UWTSD were amongst the first universities to offer this route in September 2019. Professional Policing (BSc) | UWTSD

The curriculum for the BSc Professional Policing is designed to include the curriculum set by the College of Policing, which ensures that all police officers in England and Wales study the same qualification. The curriculum covers the following core area:

· Understanding the Police Constable Role

· Valuing Difference and Inclusion

· Maintaining Professional Standards

· Evidence-based Policing

· Problem Solving

· Research Methods and Skills

· Decision-making and Discretion

· Criminology and Crime Prevention

· Vulnerability and Risk

· Public Protection

· Digital Policing

· Counter Terrorism

· Criminal Justice

· Response Policing

· Policing Communities

· Policing the Roads

· Information and Intelligence

· Police Investigations

These core areas will be covered across a number of modules each year of this 3 year blended degree course.

Learning will be delivered through a mixture of asynchronous sessions, live online lessons and on campus events that will be delivered across our three learning centres in Swansea, London and Birmingham. Assessments will be a mixture of essays, reports, presentations and exams.

There is no guaranteed entry into the police through this route and as a pre-join has a 5 year life span post completion. However, all police forces are now promoting pre-join recruitment forces and working with universities to recruit from those pools of students.

You can check that you are eligible to join the police here: Police eligibility criteria | Join The Police (joiningthepolice.co.uk)

The Team:
The Academy staff include experienced academics and former police officers, ranging from Constable to Chief Constable. These individuals have vast experience working within the emergency service strategic and operational arena's on a national and international scale, and the programmes are always developed with current practitioners. Blue Light Academy | University of Wales Trinity Saint David