The Metropolitan Police - the force most likely to bear the brunt of any major terrorist threat - has a Specialist Firearms Command (SC&O19), with a carefully protected budget, but in the wake of the Paris attacks the Commissioner announced that the number of armed response vehicles had already been increased. And while the capital's armed capability had been reduced by one-fifth since 2008-09, he was looking for ways to reverse this trend.
But it is not just the armed police response that is crucial. As is true of all policing - counter-terrorism is no different - successful operations rely upon information flows from the public and intelligence gathering.
Here again, budget restrictions will almost certainly reduce, perhaps radically, the numbers of PCSOs on the streets - part of the public face of the service - and are likely to pose significant challenges to neighbourhood policing.
