My son has wanted to join the police force since an officer visited his class at infants school.
After university he spent nine years as a Special Constable, ie working for free as a police officer with the same powers of arrest. In a situation where he was partnered with a PCSO he was the higher ranking officer. He did this alongside his "day job" and received a long service medal.
He applied many times to be a regular but the particular requirements in his force were an ability to speak various languages eg Urdu and Polish which he doesn't have.
One recruitment drive saw 10,000 people express an interest on the force's website, 4,000 people actually applied. The process lasts about nine months and has many stages. He got through to the final 150 applicants. They appointed 50.
I spoke to a female, black, detective sergeant I know and she said in that force white, male, heterosexual males were the most discriminated against group.
My son took a job as a despatcher in the call centre, allocating resources and directing the officers on the ground as the jobs came through from the call handlers. He was then being paid for being part of the police family.
To his credit he didn't give up on his dream and was finally accepted for training as a police officer. He took a huge pay cut to do this and it will be five years before he gets back to the salary he was on before.
His force is graduate entry ie you have to have a degree before you can apply. Other forces are different.
There is an enormous amount of academic work involved with the two year probation period he's currently on, having spent months doing the initial training, and his days off are invariably spent at the training centre working on his portfolio.
He loves his job. We are so proud of him.