UK Policing - Firearms Deployments Update (2026)
I promised in a previous entry to update this blog with new figures about UK police firearms officers and deployments, and the figures for the year to March 2026 are now available for England and Wales.
Total number of Armed Officers
The total number of police officers authorised to carry firearms has gone up, by about 3%, to 6,558, spread across the 43 police forces in England and Wales. This is primarily driven by an uplift in the Met Police, who cover London.
It's worth nothing that armed officers represent about 4% of the total number of police officers. Or to put it another way, 96% of police officers are unarmed.
Firearms Deployments
Firearms deployments are split between spontaneous (something unexpected is happening right now) and planned (where there is intelligence allowing a firearms response to be pre-authorised) and the figures I've seen don't break these down.
The total number of firearms deployments - where armed officers were either deployed by a tactical firearms commander, or spontaneously deployed themselves (due to encountering an unexpected threat) stands at 17,584 - that's up about 3% on the previous year.
It's worth remembering that armed officers are not exclusively deployed to incidents where firearms are suspected, but often to deal with those armed with bladed weapons, in particular zombie knives and samurai swords.
Knife and Gun Crime is Down
Despite what you might think from the panicked headlines and doom-mongering by certain politicians, gun and knife crime is reducing. There could be lots of reasons for this but the everyday hard work by police is a significant factor, even if it's rarely acknowledged!
According to the Office of National Statistics, police recorded firearms offences are down by 8% - a total of 5,151offences were recorded. And knife-enabled crime recorded by the police decreased by 8% up to March 2026 to 48,774 offences.
Firearms Discharges by Police
Of those many thousands of firearms deployments, only 9 resulted in the police discharging a firearm, i.e. firing their weapon at persons. That's just 0.1% of all firearms operations. Or to put it another way, armed officers almost never fire their weapons in anger - worth remembering if you're writing a script and featuring armed cops!
Most Firearms Deployments
Two police forces had the most deployments, accounting for 27% of the total - London's Metropolitan Police and West Midlands Police.
Scotland
The figures for Scotland are (at the time of writing) incomplete for the year to March 2026.
Scotland has a total of 438 armed officers - this seems to have decreased quite significantly from previous years when it was around 500.
The firearms deployment figures for Scotland only go up to September 2025, but they're on track for about another 1,000 for the year (which would represent a significant increase on the previous year).
Sources:
Police use of firearms statistics, April 2025 - March 2026 (England and Wales)
