What leaving policing, taught me about policing!

This article shares a few honest reflections 3 months on since I left my role as a UK Chief Constable and joined one of the worlds largest technology companies. It is neither criticism of those who continue to lead (at all levels) nor a suggestion that modern day police leadership is simple – it is not.

My own knowledge and skills gap

As Chief Constable of Warwickshire Police, I was proud of what we achieved with technology. The end of a 7 year strategic alliance with a nearby force – following their decision to terminate the collaboration – acted as a surprising catalyst for positive technological change.

We re-established our organisation as a standalone force and safely disentangled ourselves from shared IT infrastructure. It was a complex, high-risk programme that many leaders had, understandably, pushed down the road in the hope it would not collapse on their watch. The truth is that it had already effectively collapsed and it was crippling the workforce.

Last month, Warwickshire was ranked top in a national survey measuring how staff viewed technology adoption. Ironically, the force we had divorced was ranked last. That wasn’t about winning a league table or scoring points; it reflected something far more important: our workforce believed we were investing in technology that genuinely helped them do their jobs better.

Looking back, I thought that experience made me sufficiently tech literate. I now realise I had only scratched the surface.

The 30-year policing career is over

Leaving policing wasn’t about retiring or becoming disillusioned. I remain immensely passionate about the profession I joined at the age of 20. It was about continuing to learn, develop and grow. In a professional world that goes by in a flash, I feel incredibly fortunate to have such an opportunity mid-career.

For decades, policing operated on an unwritten agreement: join in your twenties, serve for thirty years, collect your pension and retire. That model no longer reflects reality. Today’s officers will work for four or even five decades. Many will move between policing, the private sector, government and other public services before returning again. That isn’t a failure of retention; it’s simply what a modern career looks like.

The organisations that thrive won’t be those that try to stop people leaving. They’ll be the ones that make it easy for talented people to leave, develop elsewhere and come back stronger. Career mobility is no longer a threat to policing – it’s one of its greatest opportunities.

AI is changing demand and shaping society

Most conversations about AI focus on how policing should use it. I think we’re asking the wrong question. The public are adopting AI at a pace no organisation can match. They’re using it to challenge decisions, draft complaints, commit fraud, detect fraud, organise communities, create content and solve everyday problems.

Those changing behaviours will fundamentally reshape police demand through new crime types, higher public expectations, more personalised services and greater volumes of contact.

This isn’t something that might happen in five years. It’s happening now and the policing workforce (irrespective of role or rank) deserve a training commitment that is akin to annual accreditation e.g. officer safety training. It will not be good enough to simply expect people to self brief on tools and equipment that will become part and parcel of everyday policing.

Leaders need to manage a hybrid workforce

Perhaps the biggest shift isn’t technology – it’s leadership, at all levels. Sergeants, Inspectors, Superintendents and Chief Officers will increasingly lead teams where humans and AI agents work side by side.

Agents are already capable of triaging complex information, summarising vast volumes of data, drafting comprehensive reports and identifying patterns that support operational decision-making. That changes the role of every leader.

Leadership will increasingly involve deciding what should be delegated to AI, what must remain with a human and, at all times, retaining accountability for those decisions and the resulting outcomes. This isn’t an IT issue, it’s a leadership issue.

What does readiness actually look like?

No policing leader can become a technology expert. Nor should they try.

My new organisation invests 12 to 15% of its annual revenue into technology research and development (R&D) – in addition to a £4.5 billion investment in UK AI technology just last year. The circa. 85k workforce are entirely focused on matching world class technology to todays and tomorrows challenges in every sector across the globe. Policing does not need to compete, but it does need to be capable of asking the right questions, spotting the wrong answers and making informed decisions.

It needs genuine technical expertise within and around senior leadership teams – not simply an effective governance structure for procurement sign-off. It needs frontline officers and staff to be treated as advisers rather than end users. They spot changing demand early and deserve the most effective technology to deal with it.

And importantly, it needs leaders at every level who know how to lead people and AI agents working together.

My biggest reflection

When I left policing, I genuinely believed Warwickshire was well prepared. I believed my leadership team was well prepared. Today, I’m less certain – not because we lacked ambition, but because I now better understand the scale and speed of what’s coming.

This isn’t another technology programme. It’s a fundamental shift in how policing will operate, how the public will interact with policing and how leaders will need to lead. If policing embraces that challenge, the opportunities for public safety are extraordinary. If it responds too slowly – even with the very best intentions – it won’t simply become a technology problem. It risks becoming a public trust problem.

And history tells us that rebuilding public trust is always far harder than protecting it in the first place.

This article was first published on LinkedIn. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of the author.