How to apply

Start by finding a suitable vacancy.

If there are no current vacancies at the prison you’re interested in, you can register your interest (opens in a new tab) and we’ll let you know when positions become available.

You can also consider the other routes to becoming a prison officer.

You’ll need your National Insurance number to apply. The application is very quick and should only take you about 10 minutes.

You’ll be asked some eligibility questions, such as nationality and your right to work in the UK, then you’ll need to enter some personal details and you’re ready to submit your application.

When applying, you can choose if you want to be assessed for an operational support grade (OSG) role at the same time (in case you’re not successful in becoming a prison officer right now). Learn more about our ‘Aspire programme‘ (opens in a new tab).

Tell us if you have a disability when you apply and we can offer reasonable adjustments to help with the online test and assessment centre. Find out about reasonable adjustments.

We’ll invite you to complete an online test that uses realistic scenarios to see if you have the basic judgement and numerical skills expected of a prison officer.

The test will ask you how you would deal with situations you might face working in a prison. This includes judging the effectiveness of different actions and solving basic numeracy and counting tasks.

Practise for the stage 1 online tests:

Behavioural scenario questions (opens in a new tab)

Numerical scenario questions (opens in a new tab)

If you pass the online test, we’ll invite you to the online assessment centre to complete the last stage of the selection process.

The online assessment centre takes about 2 hours 30 minutes. You’ll need a laptop with a webcam to take part.

Our friendly assessors will meet you and test you to see if you have the abilities, behaviours and strengths to be a prison officer.

There will be 3 parts: an interview, a role play, and a written test. Find out more in our blog (opens in a new tab).

If you apply for a women’s prison, there’s an additional written assessment where you need to answer 3 behaviour-based questions. This will explore your understanding of working as a prison officer in a women’s prison. Find out more on the prison officer application information centre (opens in a new tab).

You’ll get your online assessment centre results within 3 working days.

If you pass, the next steps depend on if you applied to a ‘pass’ or a ‘merit’ vacancy (this will be stated in the job description). See the pre-employment checks section below for more information.

We’ll only carry out pre-employment checks once there’s a prison officer position available for you.

Checks include security, identity, past employment and health checks. The checks can take 8 to 10 weeks to complete.

If you applied for a ‘Pass’ vacancy: you’ll be allocated to the next available vacancy and we’ll start your pre-employment checks straight away. If there are no vacancies, you’ll go on a reserve list until a position becomes available. Your successful pass from the assessment centre will be valid for 12 months and you can use it to apply for vacancies at other prisons.

If you applied for a ‘Merit’ vacancy: you’ll be allocated to a vacancy in order of merit, based on the online assessment centre performance of all candidates. The prison will then make job offers to the people who performed best at the assessment centre as vacancies become available. Your pre-employment checks will begin once you’re allocated to an available position. You can stay on the merit list for 12 months. After this time, you’ll need to apply again.