Five senior officers have been shortlisted and will go forward for interview for the £183,954 post as Chief Constable of the PSNI.

Tributes were paid at yesterday’s Policing Board meeting to current Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde, who is set to leave the position later this year.

The hunt will now intensify for his successor with five of the most experienced names in UK policing bidding to take the high profile job — including one from Northern Ireland.

The shortlist of candidates is made up of Bernard Hogan-Howe, Chief Constable of Merseyside; Matt Baggott, Chief Constable of Leicestershire; Jon Stoddart, Chief Constable of Durham; Paul West, Chief Constable of West Mercia and Jim Gamble, Chief Executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP).

Mr Gamble, a former RUC officer, still lives in Bangor and has a high profile through his role at CEOP, which leads the fight against online paedophiles. He formerly worked in anti-terrorist intelligence in Belfast during his time in the RUC.

However, the front-runner to succeed Sir Hugh could be Bernard Hogan-Howe, one of the UK’s most well-known officers.

Mr Hogan-Howe made headlines for his call for a “total war on crime” in Merseyside. He applied earlier this year to succeed Sir Ian Blair as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and made it to the last four in the race for the top job in UK policing. Hogan-Howe is considered the favourite to succeed Sir Hugh.

Matt Baggott and Jon Stoddart are both well-known officers, while Paul West will be viewed as the outsider.

Whoever is successful will take the reins of the PSNI during a difficult time for the force. He will have to deal with a highly politicised Policing Board as well as unprecedented budgetary constraints on local policing.

Interviews for the PSNI top job will take place on August 11. The interviewing panel will be made up of Policing Board chairman Barry Gilligan, vice-chairman Brian Rea and MLAs Leslie Cree, Dolores Kelly, Alex Maskey and Ian Paisley jnr.

The final appointment will have to be approved by the Secretary of State.

There had originally been seven applicants but Cressida Dick, a Deputy Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police Service, had applied for the job but has since accepted an internal promotion to Assistant Commissioner and Brian Moore, Wiltshire's Chief Constable, also withdrew from the running.

Policing Board chairman Barry Gilligan said: “The board is very pleased with the level of interest shown and the high calibre of the candidates for |the Chief Constable's post and looks forward to interviews in August.”