Roads policing officers are responsible for the policing of one of the most diverse road networks in the UK, which has an area covering 492sqm and a population of approximately 2.7million.

GMP has one of the busiest motorway networks in Europe, including the M62 Trans-Pennine motorway, the M60 Ring Road, M66, M61, M602, M56, M67 and A627(M). Our road section goes far beyond the motorways and includes not only the busy inner-city parts of Manchester, but some of the most rural and secluded parts of Saddleworth Moor.

These officers have specialist skills that see them involved in a multitude of operations.

With two Premier League football teams and numerous venues for large public events, music concerts and major sports tournaments, roads policing in GMP brings additional, exciting and rewarding opportunities. 

Roads policing officers enjoy interesting and varied careers, with opportunities to develop their experience and skills beyond the traditional patrol and enforcement.

The National Police Air Service (NPAS) provides all police forces in England and Wales with air support.

Police forces request NPAS to assist them with a variety of tasks. This includes searches for suspects and missing people, vehicle pursuits, public order, counter-terrorism and firearms incidents, among others. During tasks, NPAS crews make use of state-of-the-art cameras and communicate directly with ground units and force control rooms, as they work together to help keep communities safe.

A borderless service is provided with a fleet of helicopters and aeroplanes, flying from a network of bases.  Flights are managed by the NPAS Operations Centre, based in West Yorkshire.

NPAS operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and has a fleet of 19 helicopters operating from 15 bases, plus the four aeroplanes

NPAS was formed in October 2012 following a national review of air support by the Home Office and is delivered by West Yorkshire Police as the lead force – a unique arrangement in UK policing. All 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales and British Transport Police contribute funding for NPAS.

NPAS also works closely with the Civil Aviation Authority to ensure it is a safe operation at all times. 

GMP’s Tactical Aid Unit is responsible for carrying out high profile disruption and enforcement

across Greater Manchester targeting the serious, organised, and high impact crime.

The team is compile up of officers with specialist skills and training in proactive policing and carry

out targeted specialist activities wherever/whenever it is most needed.

These can include activities such as:

• Public Order

• Crowd And Events Management

• Specialist Training

• Officer Training

• Contingency Planning

• Specialist Public Safety. 

The unit enhances the work of local policing teams, using intelligence provided by communities to

disrupt the criminal activities of those causing the most harm.

The work is both rewarding and challenging, which provides TAU officers with an interesting and

varied career, with opportunities to develop your experience and current skills or to enhance your

career and develop beyond the traditional patrol and enforcement.

The TAU are part of a larger team of officers and currently operate from strategically placed bases to

cover the GMP Force area. In support of those looking to transfer, GMP is currently developing a

new North West Road Policing and Tactical Aid hub located in the vicinity of Bolton.

GMP are looking to bolster our current TAU response capability to enhance our ability to

fight, prevent and reduce crime. For this, they need to recruit talented and keen officers who have a

proven ability of outstanding work and achievements.

The SCD is responsible for dealing with serious crimes and providing protection for vulnerable people.

Established in April 2007, CTPNW exists as one of five Counter Terrorism Units (CTU’s) within a National Counter Terrorism Policing (NCTP) framework, designed to strengthen the UK’s response to the threat from terrorism.

In April 2018, the North West Counter Terrorism Unit (NWCTU) was rebranded to Counter Terrorism Police North West (CTPNW), reflecting a collaborative restructure in operations. This follows a review undertaken in 2015 of how the Force Special Branches operate, as a result, changes have been actioned to streamline processes across the NW region to ensure they are consistent, maximise opportunities and deliver unified working.

The CTPNW manages and coordinates the operational counter terrorism response on behalf of the 5 North West forces: Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. It also offers CT assistance and guidance to the Isle of Man Constabulary.

CTPNW delivers the four strands of the CONTEST strategy (Prevent, Protect, Pursue and Prepare) in collaboration with local policing teams and other partner agencies. 

Officers of the GMP, as in the rest of Great Britain, do not routinely carry firearms. Instead, the GMP maintains a firearms unit to provide them with a capability to deal with armed criminals. The Greater Manchester Police, Tactical Firearms Unit maintains Armed Response Vehicles, which transport armed officers to the scene.

The GMP maintains a mounted policing capability. The mounted officers are employed to target crime hotspots and are also seen at many events including demonstrations and the region's football matches. Horses are also used to search inaccessible areas for missing or wanted people. The unit is made up of a team of specialist police officers, skilled grooms and trainers, and 35 horses. The mounted unit is based at Hough End, in Chorlton, and uses horseboxes to transport the horses for duties around Greater Manchester.

The Special Constabulary consists of volunteer officers, who give up their spare time to assist with the policing of Greater Manchester and increase the effectiveness of local police initiatives. Special Constables are a vital part of the police service, helping to prevent crime and interacting with the diverse communities GMP serve.

GMP has over 350 special constables, who are assigned to each of the twelve divisions. Special constables work alongside their regular counterparts and are mainly assigned to divisions and work within local policing teams (LPTs), however some divisions still allow officers to work within response teams when LPT's are not on duty. Between 2009 and 2012, a small number of special constables were integrated into the Special Operations Department (X – Depart) working within the Road Policing Units (RPU's), undertaking a full and complete duties within the traffic department.

In addition there are a number of special constables engaged, with support of their employers in the Employee Supported Policing scheme. This is where the officers employer supports the officers duties, usually with paid time, 8 hours per month are commonly covered to undertake their special constabulary duties at their normal place of work.

Greater Manchester Police has eight specialist Major Incident syndicates.

As the cyber world advances and improves, so does digital crime, creating a constantly changing technological landscape that the Digital Forensics Team have to adapt to and navigate as they forensically examine digital devices for evidence to support police investigations.

Members of the team are skilled in coding and programming and are able to develop specialist software and new techniques such as improved password cracking and decoding new apps that enter the market to aid the force with their criminal investigations.

Once the team have access to a device, they are able to recover evidence including photos and videos.

As well as helping to catch criminals and provide evidence, the Digital Forensics Team are able to identify victims in online videos by using facial mapping techniques and ensure that safeguarding is put in place to protect them from further crime. Police has eight specialist Major Incident syndicates.

The Transport Unit was created in November 2019. Its role involves proactively tackling crime and disorder across Greater Manchester's public transport system, including roads, buses, trams and interchanges. The unit consists of 56 police officers, replacing previous initiatives that saw PCSOs patrolling the transport network