Specialist Police Officer
What the work is
Uses specialised operational tactics and technology to undertake serious crimes investigations, analyse evidence, resolve high-risk situations and run specialist police operations.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Plans and undertakes police investigations into offences committed in areas such as organised, corporate and cybercrime, homicide, drug trafficking, money laundering and terrorism
- Recruits and manages informants within criminal investigations
- Assesses, controls and examines incident and crime scenes, and coordinates resources to collect and preserve evidence for analysis
- Uses surveillance techniques to monitor, track and locate suspects, and conducts raids and arrests on premises
- Provides intelligence support to police responses
- Uses specialist equipment and tactics in the containment and resolution of high-risk situations such as hostage situations, terrorist incidents, and chemical, biological or radiation incidents
- Undertakes vehicle crash investigation and analysis, including by applying specialist techniques to analyse complex crashes
- Prepares and undertakes land or marine search and rescue responses, including assessing terrain or marine conditions, coordinating resources and determining a safe route to the target
- Develops and presents the findings of police analysis and investigations in court
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a specialist investigations unit of a fictional state police force, working on property and financial crime. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- Dozens of small clues line up into a clear picture, and you know where to look next
- A victim thanks you for taking their case seriously when others had given up
- A careful brief of evidence is accepted without a single question from the court
Hard days
- A lead dies after weeks of work, and you start again from a blank page
- You are pushed to move faster than the evidence allows
- Long hours of reading records, with only the faintest sign that you are on the right track
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 299231, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.