An introduction to the Professional Profiles

What are the Policing Professional Profiles?

Professional profiles define the expectations and accountabilities of all for police officers and police specific staff roles. The profiles articulate the skills and professional standards, competencies and behaviours for policing on a national basis.

The professional profiles set out the minimum national standard for each police service role. The principle aim is to achieve cross force consistency. The profile will enable users to access all the information pertaining to a specific rank or role in one document.

How can I use the Professional Profiles?

The Policing Professional Profiles will help you to better understand the requirements and accountabilities of your role, and also for all the other roles across the service, on a national level. They provide all the information about the essential skills, experience and qualifications, behaviours and continuing Professional Development all in one place.

The professional profiles will help you to explore potential progression, development and educational opportunities and possible lateral and vertical career progression. They will also help you and your line manager to objectively review your performance as part of your force annual review process (PDR) and to assist your development and improvement plans.

I already have a job description. How are professional profiles different to job descriptions?

A job description usually provides a detailed list of duties or tasks for a particular job within a Force. It may outline the parameters of a job, for example, a summary of the job, the resources required to perform the job, the size of any budget, and the reporting structures. It may also list the responsibilities and activities the person will undertake, for example, manage people, do stock takes, compile monthly reports. The focus of a job description is activity-based.

Professional profiles on the other hand focus on the requirements, accountabilities and deliverables of the role, rather than tasks performed. It includes information on the job parameters, and describes what results you should deliver. Professional profiles describe the outcomes of a job rather than all the activities employees need to carry out to get there.