Most serving police officers in England and Wales today build up their pension under the Police Pension Scheme 2015, which replaced the older final salary schemes — the Police Pension Scheme 1987 (PPS 1987) and the New Police Pension Scheme 2006 (NPPS 2006) — for ongoing accrual from April 2015 onwards. The move to a career average scheme was part of a wider set of public sector pension reforms affecting almost every major public sector workforce, but for policing specifically, the change to Normal Pension Age has been particularly sensitive, given the physically demanding and often dangerous nature of frontline police work. This guide explains how the 2015 scheme works, how it differs from the legacy schemes it replaced, and what the McCloud remedy means if you served through the transition period.
What is the Police Pension Scheme 2015?
The 2015 scheme is a career average revalued earnings (CARE) scheme, meaning your pension builds up as a series of annual slices based on your actual pensionable pay each year, each revalued annually in line with inflation, rather than being calculated at the end of your career against your final salary. Most officers who joined policing from April 2015 onwards are members of this scheme from day one, while many officers who were already serving in 2015 transitioned into it from one of the legacy schemes, with transitional protection rules determining exactly when that move happened for each individual.
Contribution rates are banded according to pensionable pay, in a similar structure to other public sector career average schemes, with higher earners paying a higher percentage. In exchange, officers build up a pension that, alongside other benefits like the ability to commute part of the pension for a tax-free lump sum at retirement, forms the core of a police officer's retirement income.
Career average vs final salary — how the 2015 scheme differs from legacy schemes
The most fundamental structural change from the legacy schemes is the shift from final salary to career average. Under PPS 1987 and NPPS 2006, an officer's pension was based on their pensionable pay right at the point of leaving or retiring, multiplied by their years of service and an accrual fraction — meaning a promotion or pay rise late in a career could substantially boost the pension value for every year of past service. Under the 2015 scheme, each year's pension is locked in based on that year's actual pay, then simply revalued for inflation, so a late-career pay rise only affects the pension built up from that point onwards, not retrospectively.
Perhaps even more significant for many officers is the change to Normal Pension Age. Under the legacy schemes, officers could often retire on a full, unreduced pension at a fixed age — as early as 55 in PPS 1987 for many ranks, or 60 in NPPS 2006. Under the 2015 scheme, Normal Pension Age is linked much more closely to State Pension age, which for most current officers means working, in principle, considerably longer before reaching an unreduced pension — a change that has been a major point of concern within policing given how physically demanding frontline duties can be over a long career.
Contribution rates and commuting part of your pension
Like other public sector career average schemes, police officer contribution rates under the 2015 scheme are banded according to pensionable pay, so officers on higher pay bands pay a higher percentage of their salary into the scheme than those on lower bands. Employer (force) contributions are set considerably higher still, reflecting the overall cost of providing police pensions, though this employer share isn't something that appears on an individual officer's payslip.
At retirement, officers also have the option to commute — give up — part of their annual pension in exchange for a one-off, tax-free lump sum, up to limits set by HMRC rules that apply across most registered pension schemes. The exact commutation rate (how much lump sum you get for each pound of annual pension given up) is set by the scheme rules, and deciding how much, if any, pension to commute is a genuinely personal decision that depends on individual financial circumstances and priorities in retirement.
Ill-health retirement — a particularly important protection for police officers
Given the higher-than-average incidence of duty-related injury in policing — from physical assaults to the cumulative wear of shift work, pursuit driving, and physical restraint — the 2015 scheme includes robust ill-health retirement provisions. Officers who become permanently disabled for ordinary police duties, or for any regular employment, as assessed by a qualified medical referee, may be entitled to an ill-health pension calculated with an enhancement to reflect their disability, on top of whatever pension they'd already built up. There are different tiers of ill-health award depending on the severity and permanence of the disability, recognising that an officer who can never work again in any capacity has different needs from one who could still undertake other, less physically demanding employment. Because ill-health retirement decisions can have such a significant effect on an officer's financial position, the assessment process involves independent medical evidence and a formal appeals route if an officer disagrees with the initial decision.
Death-in-service and family benefits
As with the LGPS and other public sector schemes, the 2015 Police Pension Scheme provides for your family if you die while serving. This typically includes a tax-free lump sum death grant and an ongoing pension for a surviving spouse, civil partner, or eligible partner, along with pensions for dependent children, reflecting the fact that policing carries genuine occupational risk that most other public sector jobs don't. These benefits apply regardless of how long you've served, giving officers and their families a baseline level of protection from the very start of their police career, on top of whatever retirement pension has been built up to that point.
Legacy police schemes vs the Police Pension Scheme 2015
The McCloud remedy and police pensions
Officers who were already paying into one of the legacy schemes (PPS 1987 or NPPS 2006) before April 2012, and who remained serving through the transition to the 2015 scheme, may be affected by the McCloud remedy. This followed a legal ruling that the transitional protection originally given to older members — letting them stay in, or have their benefits calculated under, their legacy scheme for longer — amounted to unlawful age discrimination against younger colleagues who were moved into the 2015 scheme sooner with no such choice. The remedy addresses this by giving affected officers a "deferred choice" between legacy scheme benefits and 2015 scheme benefits for the remedy period running from April 2015 to March 2022, with the actual decision usually made later, often at retirement, once real figures for both options are available for direct comparison. Given how different the legacy schemes' final salary, fixed retirement age structure is from the 2015 scheme's career average, later Normal Pension Age design, this choice can be financially significant, and it's covered in more detail in our dedicated McCloud remedy guide.
How the 2015 scheme fits into wider public sector pension reform
The move to career average pensions in 2015 wasn't unique to policing — it happened across almost the entire public sector at broadly the same time, affecting the NHS Pension Scheme, Teachers' Pension Scheme, Civil Service pensions, the Local Government Pension Scheme (which, uniquely, is also a funded scheme rather than unfunded like the police scheme), and the Armed Forces Pension Scheme. The reforms were driven by a government-wide review into the long-term affordability of public sector pensions, aiming for a broadly similar structure — career average, linked more closely to State Pension age — across the public sector, while preserving valuable features specific to each workforce, such as the enhanced ill-health provisions found in policing and the armed forces. Understanding that the 2015 police reforms were part of this much wider change can help make sense of why so many other public sector schemes went through a strikingly similar McCloud remedy process at the same time.
What this means for serving and retiring officers
For an officer still some years from retirement, day-to-day membership of the 2015 scheme looks much like any other career average pension: pay in through banded contributions, watch your annual statement show the pension slowly building, and expect a Normal Pension Age tied to State Pension age. For an officer approaching retirement who served through the 2015-2022 remedy period, the McCloud deferred choice becomes a genuinely important decision, and it's worth engaging early with any scheme communications, retirement modelling tools, and information provided by your police pension scheme administrator well before the point you actually need to make the choice, since the figures involved can be substantial and are specific to each individual's own service history and pay.
Police pension rules and the McCloud remedy involve genuinely complex calculations, and this guide is a general explainer rather than a substitute for checking your own scheme records. For free, impartial guidance, visit MoneyHelper.
Transitional protection and when officers moved to the 2015 scheme
When the 2015 scheme was introduced, officers closest to retirement under the legacy schemes were given transitional protection, allowing them to remain in PPS 1987 or NPPS 2006 for longer, or in some cases for the remainder of their service, rather than moving straight into the 2015 scheme. Broadly, officers within a set number of years of their legacy scheme's normal retirement age at the point of the 2015 reforms qualified for full protection, with a tapered group qualifying for partial protection covering a shorter transitional period.
It was precisely this age-based transitional protection that led to the McCloud legal challenge, since younger officers serving at the same time, doing the same job, were moved into the 2015 scheme immediately with no equivalent choice. The remedy now addresses this by extending a deferred choice to those younger officers for the affected remedy period, effectively levelling up their options to match what older colleagues were originally given.
Part-time working and career breaks
Police officers who work part-time, including through flexible working arrangements after returning from parental leave, continue to build up 2015 scheme pension based on their actual (part-time) pensionable pay, rather than being excluded from accrual during that period. Because the scheme is career average rather than final salary, a period of part-time working affects only the pension built up during that specific period, rather than reducing the value of pension already accrued in earlier, full-time years — a genuine advantage of the career average design for officers whose working patterns change during their career, for whatever reason.
Career breaks or unpaid leave can affect pension accrual differently depending on the type and length of the break, and officers considering an extended break are generally advised to check with their force's pensions team about exactly how that specific period would be treated, since rules around continuing to pay contributions, or having a break in accrual, can vary depending on the circumstances of the leave.
Where to get help and check your own figures
Because so much of what matters for an individual officer's pension — their specific service history, any legacy scheme membership, part-time patterns, and their position on the McCloud remedy — is personal to them, the most reliable source of figures is always your own force's pensions team or the national police pension scheme administrator, rather than general guidance like this. Most administrators now provide online portals where officers can view their accrued pension, model different retirement scenarios, and, where relevant, see indicative McCloud remedy comparisons ahead of their own decision point.
Special leave, injury, and pension protection
Because policing carries a genuine risk of injury, the 2015 scheme includes provisions to protect an officer's pension position during periods of authorised sick leave or injury-related absence, generally ensuring that pensionable pay used for accrual purposes during at least part of such absences is protected at, or close to, the officer's normal rate of pay rather than any reduced sick pay actually received. The exact protection depends on the type and length of the absence, and officers who experience an extended period of injury-related leave should check with their force's pensions team about exactly how their specific period of absence has been, or will be, treated for pension purposes.
This kind of protection matters because, without it, a long period of injury-related absence — precisely the kind of situation the ill-health and injury provisions elsewhere in the scheme are designed to guard against — could otherwise reduce the pension an officer builds up during exactly the period when they're least able to influence their own pay or working pattern.
Keeping an eye on future scheme changes
Public sector pension schemes, including the Police Pension Scheme 2015, are periodically reviewed by government, and rules around contribution rates, revaluation, and Normal Pension Age can in principle change over time as part of wider fiscal or workforce policy decisions. Staying aware of official communications from your force and the national police pension scheme administrator is the most reliable way to keep up to date with any changes that might affect your own position, rather than relying on general news coverage, which doesn't always capture the detail relevant to your own service history.