Ministry of Defence Police

The Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) is a civilian special police force which is part of the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence. The MDP are tasked with protecting the UK’s Defence Community, capabilities and assets. With armed officers, specialist teams and civil servants working across the UK to defend nuclear facilities, military sites, defence manufacturers and government buildings which underpin national security.

The force, which consists of two divisions, is headquartered at RAF Wyton, Cambridgeshire. It was formed in 1971 by the merger of three separate service constabularies: the Air Force Department Constabulary, the Army Department Constabulary, and the Admiralty Constabulary.

The MDP underwent a significant restructuring as part of the coalition government's post-2010 austerity measures, and the Strategic Defence and Security Review. For the spending year of 2024 to 2025 the MDP had a budget of £182.7 million. As of 2025 the force stated that it “seeks to optimise resources in alignment with evolving policing demands by leveraging technology and enhancements in broader policing to ensure cost efficiency.”

As of March 2019, the force had a workforce of around 2,549 police officers and 227 police staff based at numerous defence and infrastructure locations across the United Kingdom. The MDP has the second highest number of officers trained as authorised firearms officers of any police force, after the Metropolitan Police Service, who as of March 2019, had 2,623 AFOs.

In 2016, MDP officers made 61 arrests. Comparatively, in the year ending March 2017, a territorial police force with similar numbers of officers, Sussex Police, made 17,506 arrests.