Quick facts (Back to top)
- A category B prison in Buckinghamshire
- HMP Springhill, an open men’s prison, is on the same site
- Earn £35,246 to £39,503 a year*
About Grendon Prison (Back to top)
With a capacity of 233, HMP Grendon is a category B adult men’s prison on the same site as HMP Springhill. It is on the outskirts of Grendon Underwood village in west Buckinghamshire, close to the Oxfordshire border.
What’s it like working as a prison officer? (Back to top)
Prison officers come from all walks of life and perform a vital role in a unique working environment. They are like peacekeepers, teachers and counsellors all rolled into one. You could be too.
Working as a prison officer is anything but predictable, no two shifts are the same. But it’s about working together and keeping calm under pressure to keep everyone safe.
As a prison officer at Grendon Prison, you will support prisoners to engage in therapeutic interventions to address their offending behaviours.
Find out more about life as a prison officer and the skills you need.
Inside Grendon Prison (Back to top)
HMP Grendon is a therapeutic community prison focused on helping prisoners gain insights into their offending behaviours and learn new skills to help them reintegrate into society. It provides a structured environment where prisoners with complex emotional needs take part in group therapy.
Prisoners engage in discussions about their behavioural problems, helping them to develop life skills and improve their psychological wellbeing to help reduce their likelihood of reoffending. Each of the prison wings is a separate therapeutic community run by specialist staff including therapists, psychologists, trained specialist officers and offender supervisors.
To make the most of their time in prison and give them an opportunity to learn additional new skills, prisoners also have access to:
- lessons to improve their literacy and numeracy skills
- vocational training opportunities to increase their chances of employment
- onsite work opportunities where they can learn skills such as food preparation and catering, maintenance and peer support.
Getting to Grendon Prison (Back to top)
With plenty of free onsite parking for staff, HMP Grendon is in a rural location around 20 minutes by car from Bicester and 30 minutes from Aylesbury.
Prisons run to tight time schedules so you will need to plan your travel to ensure you are at work and ready to start your shift on time. The nearest train stations to the prison are Bicester Village, which is about 8 miles away, and Aylesbury which is 13 miles away. Neither are served by a regular bus route to the prison. Please bear in mind that, as a prison officer, you will need to work shifts plus some unsocial hours and public holidays when public transport may not be running.
How long will it take you to get there? (Back to top)
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Pay and benefits (Back to top)
As a prison officer, you will start on a 37 hour a week contract until you have completed your initial training. You can then choose to increase your hours to 39 or 41 hours. This means you could earn between £35,246 and £39,503 as a prison officer at HMP Grendon. This includes a £1,500 market supplement.
Find out more about prison officer pay.
As an employee of Grendon Prison, you will have access to a range of facilities and employee benefits including:
- use of a free onsite gym
- extensive free onsite parking
- excellent training and career progression opportunities
- access to a subsidised staff canteen in HMP Springhill which is adjacent to Grendon Prison
You will also have access to a range of other great benefits you get from being a part of HM Prison and Probation Service.