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How Does PCDA Work?

I'm looking to apply for a PCDA (Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship), however, I have some questions:
1) How much do you get paid whilst on it? Because I need to pay rent in the meantime.
2) How long does the process take and when do you begin the apprenticeship?
3) How do I prepare for the tests and interview?
4) Can I specialise into different careers such as forensic science and CSI later on?

Reply 1

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Original post by gabieee

I didn’t do PCDA myself. There are some people around here who are on it - I can answer some of the questions though.

1. You get paid on national pay scale point 0 I think - these are all available online to view. It should be £23,500 or so plus local weighting allowances +£5000 or so for Met and slightly less for other south eastern forces.

2. As far as I know, its 3 years

3. You can’t really prepare for it unless you are willing to pay a specialist coaching firm. You shouldn’t need to at this stage.

4. Forensics - scenes of crimes officers are not police officers, they’re police staff and train on a completely different track. This is a field you can’t move into. After your probationary period (which should be 3 years for PCDA although I might be wrong) you can theoretically move into a specialist role, but in reality this normally happens more organically by gaining skills and training and experience in certain fields of policing, and then moving to something like that. Policing specialist fields tend to be things like central and specialist crime, public order, armed policing, intelligence, CT and so on