She also provides a training platform for young officers undertaking training during the Royal Navy's initial warfare officers' course, and has also been used in the coastal protection role, most notably during Operation Olympic, the security operation surrounding the London 2012 Olympic Games.

She also regularly deploys out of area, often in the company of other P2000s, with the task of providing practical navigation and seamanship training to the ship's students.

As of the 2020s, 14 of the Navy's 16 Archer-class vessels are assigned to the inshore division of the Coastal Forces Squadron.

In June 2024, Puncher and her sister ship HMS Pursuer, embarked personnel from the Navy's the Mine and Threat Exploitation Group and deployed for exercises in the Baltic Sea.

[3] Puncher has a permanent crew of five regular Royal Navy personnel, one officer and four ratings, who fulfil the minimum necessary seagoing complement of the vessel.