Communications Officer (999-101 First Contact/Despatch)

“He just went crazy. He slammed the door and started screaming in my face, he went to the kitchen. He’s got a knife. He threw everything on the floor. I’ve run upstairs – I’m hiding in the bedroom – I dragged a cabinet in front of the door. But it won’t take him long to get through. Can you hear him?! Can you hear him?!”

This job is all in the detail.
Did she say he slammed the door in her face, or just slammed the door?
Does he have a knife… or did he have one?

As you are listening, you are typing. As you are typing, you are assessing and categorising the call in order of priority. As you analyse the information, you are already thinking of the next questions to ask — all while calming the caller and reassuring them that help is on the way.

From here, two vital roles come into play:

First Contact

You are the first point of contact. You gather critical information, assess threat, risk and harm, and ensure the situation is clearly understood. You capture every detail accurately, knowing that what you pass on will directly influence the response.

Once complete, you pass the information seamlessly to a colleague for action — and move straight on to the next call.

Despatch

You take that information and turn it into action.
You prioritise incidents, deploy resources, and coordinate officers and partner agencies across London. You stay in constant communication with units on the ground, adapting to a situation that can change in seconds.

Your decisions ensure the right people, with the right skills, get to the right place — fast.

We are always looking for great people to join our team — in both roles.

You will be customer-focused and professional, with excellent attention to detail and a calm head under pressure. Above all, you’ll have the drive and determination to make a difference to the communities of London.

This can be a challenging and intense environment. Every day, our teams handle around 13,000 emergency and non-emergency calls and 12,000 digital interactions. No two days are the same.

Whether you are:

• Taking the first call and uncovering crucial details, or
• Coordinating the response and deploying resources,

You will play a critical part in keeping London safe.

We ask all of our people to assess priority and severity, think clearly under pressure, and ensure every caller receives the right support as quickly as possible.

Key Responsibilities

What does the average day look like? Your duties will include:

• Handling emergency and non-emergency calls. We work with a framework, and you will triage calls in accordance with this, assessing each one’s priority and risks.
• Prioritising a response to incidents
• Working with colleagues across the boroughs of London to manage our response to requests for assistance.
• Facilitating telephone interpreting for callers who speak little or no English, building confidence across our multi-cultural communities and for those visiting the capital.
• Work within the Despatch and Pan London environments speaking to officers and staff on the radios and deploying units to calls.
• Carry out checks or other intelligence enquiries on behalf of officers using national police systems. eg. vehicle and name checks

You will provide the customer-focused, professional, first point of contact our callers expect. You do not need previous experience; instead, we're looking for common sense, attention to detail, good communication skills and a calm head under pressure.

New Communications Officers will start their training in either Despatch or First Contact with further training following probation to become competent in all areas of MetCC.

Shift Patterns

All new staff will be required to work full time for the duration of their training and coaching; which is currently 16 weeks. After that time you will aligned to one of our core teams and may then submit a flexible working application for consideration as part of the annual flexible working application process.

You will be required to work a 24/7, 365 day a year variable shift pattern, including nights and public holidays. We actively support flexible working, questions regarding this can be addressed during the recruitment process.

The normal working hours are 36hrs per week, full time excluding breaks. Working a shift pattern does attract payment of a Shift Disturbance Allowance and Flexibility Allowance. We’ll talk to you about this more throughout the recruitment process.

If you think you've got what it takes to join MetCC, start your application now. 

Disability Confident Statement 

The Met is committed to being an equitable (fair and impartial) and inclusive employer for disabled people, striving to have a diverse and representative workforce at all levels. We encourage applications from people from the widest possible range of backgrounds, cultures and experiences. We particularly welcome applications from people with disabilities and long-term conditions, ethnic minority groups and women.

As a Disability Confident Leader, the Met has committed to making disability equality part of our everyday practice. We ensure that people with disabilities and those with long term conditions have the opportunities to fulfil their potential and realise their aspirations.

The Met is committed to making reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process to ensure disabled applicants can perform at their best. If you need any reasonable adjustments or changes to the application and recruitment process, we ask that you include this information within your application form. All matters will be treated in strict confidence.

Please note, if you are applying for a police officer role or to become a police community support officer (PCSO) or designated detention officer (DDO), there is a minimum requirement that you must pass a job-related fitness test (JRFT) at point of entry. This does not apply to police staff roles. Find out more about police fitness standards.

Read our full disability confidence statement.