There have been over 11,000 applications to the two Garda recruitment competitions held in 2025, according to figures today.
The latest competition, which closed on 9th October 2025, attracted 4,334 applications. This comes after the competition held in February 2025 received more than 6,784 applications.
Of the 4,334 applications, 57% were first-time applicants to a Garda recruitment competition.
The September/October competition saw continued strong interest from people over 30 with 40% of applicants in this age category. In the February campaign, it was 42%.
The latest competition also maintained the trend of increased diversity of applicants.
Applications from categories other than “white Irish” accounted for 23% of all applications. This included “Asian” (5%), “black” (2%), “any other white – apart from white Irish” (13%), and “other including mixed” (3%). Approximately 7% preferred not to say or left this field blank.
The total number of people who described themselves as “white Irish” was 70%.
In 2019, the percentage of Garda recruitment applicants describing themselves as “white Irish” was 88%.
Over 30% (32%) of the applicants were female. Currently, approximately 30% of Gardaí are female. This is higher than the average for European police services.
The competition is conducted by publicjobs.ie on behalf of An Garda Síochána.
Publicjobs.ie, who are conducting the recruitment competition on behalf of An Garda Síochána, will now commence assessing the eligibility of applicants with the first stage of the selection process (online assessments) to begin in late October.
Competency-based interviews are expected to commence from late November.
Candidates successful at the selection stage will then be forwarded to An Garda Síochána to complete the appointments process which includes a physical competency test, medical examination, and substance mis-use testing. Vetting also starts at this stage.
It is anticipated that some successful candidates from this competition will start training in the Garda College in 2026.
A number of successful candidates from the February 2025 competition are currently undergoing training in the Garda College.
Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly said: “This number of applicants so soon after our last competition in February demonstrates there is a lot of interest in making a difference to communities by becoming a Garda. We can offer a varied career where no day is the same. It is not an easy job, but it is a job worth doing.
“This level of applications will give us a strong pipeline of Garda Trainees as we seek to further grow the number of Gardaí this year and in the coming years.”
The current number of Gardaí is 14,325 (30th September 2025).
At the moment, there are 564 Garda Trainees in training.
The next group of Garda Trainees will be sworn-in as Gardaí in mid-November and join frontline colleagues.
A new group of Trainees will then enter the College in mid-November.
Recruit classes are now entering the Garda College every 11 – 12 weeks.
An Garda Síochána offers a unique training experience where candidates get paid during training and graduate with a Level 7 degree.
Garda Trainees are paid €354 per week for the 36 weeks of training in the Garda College and graduate with a Level 7 Bachelor of Arts Degree in Applied Policing accredited by the University of Limerick. Food and accommodation is provided free while resident in the Garda College.
The latest recruitment competition was supported by a €671,000 (incl VAT) promotional campaign, under the tag line of “It’s a Job Worth Doing” across online video, national and local print and radio, social media, and outdoor advertising.
The campaign focused on the positive impact Gardaí have on people and communities across a variety of policing roles. It was produced by Core and Spark Foundry in conjunction with creative video agency Rubberduck.
The paid online and social media element of the campaign across channels such as Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and Facebook delivered approximately 60,000 clicks to publicjobs.ie. The recruitment videos were also viewed over 600,000 times on the gaming platform Twitch, and more than 250,000 times on YouTube.
The Garda Office of Corporate Communications also produced a wide-range of promotional content in-house including videos, podcast, and media events.
There were over 5m views of recruitment content on An Garda Síochána’s social media channels, the podcast had over 500 hours of listening time, and there was a significant number of interviews with Gardaí across national and local print and radio.
The Garda Office of Corporate Communications won Best Integrated Campaign at the 2025 PRII Communication Impact Awards for its work in promoting the February Garda recruitment competition.
