On 5 September 2019, the Prime Minister announced the government’s commitment to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales by 31 March 2023. The Police Uplift Programme (PUP) launched in October 2019, with progress towards the 20,000 target tracked regularly through Home Office statistical publications.

Alongside the high levels of recruitment that are critical to delivering this programme, a key objective of PUP is to retain newly recruited police officers at high levels. In response to this objective, the Home Office launched the 2021 PUP New Recruits Onboarding Survey to improve understanding of the retention of new officers.

The primary aims of the survey were:

• to provide insight into the views and experiences of new officers, including how satisfied they felt about their police career, and whether they intended to remain in policing
• to better understand the new joiners’ onboarding process, including recruitment, training, management, support and wellbeing
• to identify how views and opinions vary across sub-groups of interest (including gender, ethnicity, age, length of service and entry route), and collect richer information on the backgrounds of new joiners

This report presents the findings of the 2023 PUP New Recruits Onboarding Survey. It explores the themes analysed by the Home Office analysis team. The College of Policing will report in due course on themes not covered in this report, including police education and training, evidence-based policing and problem solving.