You will then be able to:

– ask to stay at your current prison and potentially qualify for a permanent relocation package

– transfer to a prison closer to your permanent home (within 60 to 75 minutes travelling distance)

– transfer to another prison – this will depend on whether there are vacancies at that prison, and you may have to compete with other officers who also wish to transfer

– We will book and pay for you to stay in a hotel for the first 30 nights you are away from home

– Accommodation will also be provided during your prison officer foundation training. Wherever possible, your training will be at our Newbold Revel residential college near Rugby in Warwickshire

– It will be your responsibility to find accommodation to move into after you’ve completed your training

– If, while you’re on your foundation course, you need to spend time at the weekends finalising your accommodation, you will be able to request that your travel and accommodation costs for this period are reimbursed

You will not qualify for the additional £1,500 you would have received on top of your salary for that year. Plus, you will not be able to apply for another prison officer role under the first time prison officer recruitment scheme.

On top of to your salary, you’ll get:

– an additional £1,500 each year for 2 years (paid at the end of each year, not as part of your monthly salary)

– an opportunity to earn more through our ‘Payment Plus’ scheme (see below for more information)

– your accommodation costs paid for up to 23 months (up to £659 per month in London and £589 per month elsewhere)

– to claim the cost of a monthly trip home

The salaries are based on a 39 hour week and include an unsocial hours allowance. You’ll start on a 37 hour contract until you have completed your initial training. You will then be able to choose to increase your hours to 39 or 41 hours a week.

Due to staffing needs, you are likely to have an opportunity to volunteer to work extra hours at your initial prison if you wish to do so. Any hours that you volunteer to work over your contractual hours will be paid as ‘Payment Plus’. This is currently paid at a rate of £22 per hour.

You will no longer be eligible to claim your accommodation costs or the additional £1,500 per year that’s payable for the first 2 years under the first time prison officer recruitment scheme.

If a market supplement is payable at your initial prison, this will stop when you start at your permanent prison.

We will let you know if your prison choices don’t meet these criteria. You will have then an opportunity to:

– amend your choices

– or apply directly to your preferred prison(s) via our standard application process

If you choose option 2, you won’t be eligible to claim any of the financial incentives specific to this scheme.

There’s an additional stage to the prison officer application process – an online assessment – to explore your understanding of what the implications of this are on working in a female prison. 

If your application to work in a female prison is successful, you will receive additional specialist training to work effectively with women prisoners. Find out more about working at a female prison.

We will aim to offer you a prison officer role at one of your first 3 choices of prison.

As the prisons on the first time prison officer recruitment scheme list have an ongoing need for prison officers, you should be able to start sooner than this. This will depend on how long your pre-employment checks take, and how soon you can leave your current job.  

Typically, pre-employment checks take 6 to 7 weeks. You will have access to our recruitment team for any support you might need throughout the process, and we will do all we can to make it as quick as possible.

Find tips and more information about each stage of the prison officer application process.