15m Bleep Test — Levels & Chart

The 15m bleep test is a shuttle run set over a 15-metre course instead of the usual 20 metres. It's the version UK police forces use in the Job-Related Fitness Test (JRFT), the fitness check every candidate sits before joining as a constable, and that most serving officers repeat every year. Recorded beeps set the pace, and you run between two lines 15 metres apart, touching each line before the next beep sounds.

Because the course is shorter, you turn more often than on the 20m test. That's the main thing that makes the two feel different, even at a similar effort level. The rest of the format is the same: speed increases in stages, and your score is the last level and shuttle you completed before you couldn't keep up.

The College of Policing (the body that sets the JRFT standard) publishes shuttle counts and timing only as far as level 5.4, because that's the standard forces are required to test to. Its implementation guidance states that forces "must deliver the test to the 5:4 standard only."

Higher specialist-role standards do exist. The guidance references a 10.5 pass mark for one firearms-related role (DIAFO), but it doesn't publish shuttle-by-shuttle timing for those higher levels, so this chart doesn't invent numbers past what's officially documented.

The 15m and 20m bleep tests share the same basic idea: run between two lines in time with a beep, faster with every level. But they aren't the same test. The shorter course means more turns per minute at any given speed, which adds braking and re-accelerating that the 20m version doesn't ask for nearly as often. Level 1 also starts slower on the 15m version, 7.8 km/h against 8.5 km/h.

The two aren't score-comparable. A level and shuttle from the 15m test doesn't map onto an equivalent 20m score, and we won't publish a conversion figure here. Anyone offering a precise "15m to 20m" formula is guessing, because the turning demand doesn't scale in a simple linear way. If you're training for the JRFT specifically, practice on a 15m course. Don't rely on a 20m score as a stand-in.

This site's beep test app runs the 15m schedule too. Open the beep test and, before you press start, switch the toggle from "20m Test" to "15m (UK Police)." The beeps, level calls, and progress tracking all switch to the 15-metre timing shown in the chart above, and your result comes back in the same level.shuttle format as the JRFT.

If you're in the US and landed here searching for the "15 meter pacer test," the JRFT chart on this page isn't the test you're after. FitnessGram (the US school fitness assessment) has its own 15-metre option for gyms too small to fit a full 20m course. It follows the same speed progression as the 20m PACER, not the UK police protocol described here, so the two 15m tests use different numbers. See the PACER test guide for FitnessGram's standards.