The South Australian Government has committed to an additional 400 police officers to mid 2010. With a local skill shortage this has created exciting opportunities for serving UK police officers to migrate to South Australia while continuing to enjoy their career of choice.

While the South Australia Police (SAPOL) is not currently undertaking a UK recruiting campaign, SAPOL will be recruiting from the UK in the future. The following outlines SAPOL's pre-requisites for entry, and provides details of SAPOL's registrations of interest process.

You will find information on this page about:

Migration Opportunities

Application Pre-Requisites

Submitting Applications

Applicant Testing

Training and Graduation

SAPOL Salary Structure

Registering an Interest

If you are interested in being advised of SAPOL UK recruiting campaigns you are welcome to register your interest by email, providing your name and contact email address to SAPOL Recruiting Section at: sapol.recruiting@police.sa.gov.au

Further Information

For further information please contact Police Recruiting Section:

email sapol.recruiting@police.sa.gov.au or telephone +61 8 8204 2244

Migration Opportunities

Working with the Department of Trade and Economic Development of the State Government of South Australia and the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC), SAPOL is able to nominate skilled police officers for Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme (RSMS) visas. Through this scheme, nominees and their dependent family members are granted permanent residency status, enabling police officers to take up employment with SAPOL.

For further information on RSMS visas, refer to the DIAC website (search on rsms visa).

For further information on South Australian Government services on immigration, refer to the Immigration SA website (follow links for Skilled Worker).

Application Pre-requisites

Applicants for SAPOL's UK recruiting program are employed in conjunction with DIAC's skilled migration visa scheme and so must meet both SAPOL and DIAC requirements. Applicants must, therefore, be a police officer currently serving in a UK police service (this includes applicants who are on a career break from their UK service) and:

• have a minimum 3 years continuous police service, within the last 5 years, following initial training
• not be over 45 years of age.

Submitting Applications

SAPOL accepts applications for its UK recruiting courses only during a specified UK recruiting campaign. Selection processes are held annually, with a view to recruiting for two UK course intakes per year.

Applicants are required to provide the following to support their application:

• SAPOL UK Application forms
• Passport size photograph
• Photocopies of drivers licence, birth certificate, academic record, current first aid certification (including CPR component)
• Resume/curriculum vitae
• Certified copies of police service records including a record of service history, sick leave record, conduct record, and details of special skills and attributes
• SAPOL Medical forms, including a doctor's certification of medical clearance.

Applicants who are 35 years of age or older must undergo an exercise ECG, the results of which must be cleared by SAPOL's Police Medical Officer before applicants will be allowed to undertake the physical assessment test.

Applicant Testing

Applicant testing and interviews are conducted in central London. Testing includes:

• Entrance examination and written personality profile assessment (both conducted on the same day and completed within approximately 3 hours).
• Physical testing and interview (generally conducted 6-8 weeks after the entrance examination). Physical testing includes beep test, push-ups and sit-ups. 

Participation in selection processes, including costs associated with travel to and from testing locations, is at the applicant's expense with no reimbursements for costs.

The entrance examination is the same as that used for recruiting within Australia. An example is provided below. Please disregard any reference to Adelaide based testing in the document.

Mock entrance examination (PDF 160KB)

Training and Graduation

Successful applicants undertake a 10-week paid training course at the Police Academy, Fort Largs, Adelaide, followed by a period of probationary on-the-job training. The length of probation is determined on the basis of previous policing service. Training has been developed around a conversion course to prepare officers for policing within South Australia, and includes: academic studies in law, policy and procedures; operational safety, including driver and firearms training; and communications training.

After graduating, officers are posted to the Adelaide metropolitan area, or may nominate to be posted to a South Australian country area. Country postings offer a number of financial benefits, including entitlement to government housing rental, with SAPOL paying a 50% rental subsidy for government housing. SAPOL also pays for removal of furniture to country locations.

All costs associated with testing and immigration processes and with successful recruits relocating from the UK to South Australia are the applicant's expense.

SAPOL Salary Structure

The following pay increments are in Australian dollars: