The dataset consists of northward and eastward baroclinic and barotropic current vectors derived from a 40 year run of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory Coastal Ocean Modelling System (POLCOMS) numerical model, run from 01 January 1964 to 31 December 2004. The dataset consists of 41 data files in Climate and Forecast (CF) compliant NetCDF format. The data are supplied as a gridded dataset covering the entire northwest European continental shelf and extending out into the Atlantic Ocean. The grid resolution varies from 7.8 km to 14.2 km along the longitudinal axis and is at 12.3 km on the latitudinal axis. The model contains 40 depth layers. The model run was from 01 January 1964 to 31 December 2004. The barotropic currents were generated every 20 seconds, while the baroclinic currents were generated every 300 seconds. These generated currents were then averaged over a 25 hour tidal cycle to remove tidal current influence from the data. The dataset consists of 41 data files in Climate and Forecast (CF) compliant NetCDF format. The model simulations were run on the HECTOR supercomputer managed by the University of Edinburgh. The data were generated by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) Liverpool as part of Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) National Capability (NC) funding looking at multi-decadal variability and trends in temperature of the northwest European continental shelf.