As I write this post I'm coming off the back of my 27th anniversary of working in the security industry both in the UK and with small stints in distant lands. In that time, I've worked in many roles throughout the industry with a diverse CV that leads to my current role as Operations Director. My first ever job was on a "teen dreem" disco, affectionately known in the industry as a "nappy night", where the younger teenagers are given the opportunity to attend a club night geared towards their age group - always an insight, and most doorman's least-loved type of event. Along the way, I've worked with several great colleagues who to this day I'd go to bat for - the brotherhood that is Warrior Promotions who are, hands down, the best security company I've ever worked alongside for the rock & alt scene, my old event colleagues at the now defunct Response Security Solutions under one of the best crowd managers in the industry.
One thing that is hard to ignore within this industry is the churn of staff. In event security, it's often a second job so working for different teams can be akin to families coming together season after season and if you're lucky, you'll recognise 1 in 5 faces. Companies like the ones I've mentioned above used to break the mould because we had bonded teams; dysfunctional families that genuinely made it feel like we're not doing a job and sadly, this is something that's largely disappeared from the industry. The security guarding industry and alarm response (our core business) seem to have the lowest standards and expectations of any sector. Despite all the upskilling now expected by the SIA, the quality of staff and teamwork has deteriorated. So I find myself asking: what went wrong?
Whenever we talk of security manpower, the conversation doesn't take long to come around to the race to the bottom and when all companies are close to the bottom, the more unscrupulous operators start finding ways to cut in to the basement. As a security guarding company, we often find ourselves competing against prices where it's simply not possible to provide manpower legally for the prices that are offered by our "competitors". When quoting for a contract, we never pay less than the real living wage; meaning we're already at a competitive disadvantage; we then pay our staff a KPI incentive on top of their salary for meeting their targets around patrols and punctuality. And here’s the part most clients never see: doing this properly costs money. PAYE, NI, holiday pay, pensions, screening, insurance. Those costs don’t vanish just because a quote looks tidy. The problem is, as a buyer of security, you're often unaware of the seriousness of the situation and we're stuck in that uncomfortable position between wanting to educate, but not wanting to seem like it's just sour grapes.
Some of the tricks that are regularly used to bring the cost down in recent times include:
- Paying staff as if they're self employed. Staff have to issue an invoice for their billable hours
- Paying staff through an umbrella company where taxes and business costs are circumvented
- Charging staff for uniform, "insurance", and "admin fees", often bringing the staff below minimum wage
- Paying staff who are claiming benefits as employees for the first 16 hours, then a rate below minimum wage in cash for additional hours
- Paying staff on student visas a substantially reduced rate (sometimes as low as £8 per hour) in cash for hours in contravention of their visa restrictions.
The easiest way to spot a broken labour model is to understand what a legitimate one actually costs. As a buyer of security services, what can you do to ensure your contractors are providing you with legitimate staff? There's a few simple things you can ask; if the quote looks to good to be true there are checks you can make:
- Know the minimum charge rate possible for the rate your guards are being paid and if a supplier is coming in lower than this, question them - (as of January 2026, it's £18.19 per hour - your figure will vary depending on pension, holiday assumptions, supervision, training, and the provider’s overheads, but there is always a hard floor.)
- £13.45 per hour to the guard
- £1.63 per hour towards NI contributions
- £0.31 per hour towards the employee's pension
- £2.80 per hour towards annual leave (5.6 weeks holiday, average sick leave & training time of 2.4 weeks)
- Ask how your guards are being paid. HMRC are cracking down on the security industry and actively looking at prosecutions for companies paying through pseudo self-employed contracts.. if your staff wear the uniform and follow the rules, they should (legally) be on the payroll - don't be afraid to ask.
- Check insurances - if guards are being paid in any way other than on the books PAYE, ask to see their insurance specifically covers subcontractors
- Ask to see screening files - again, nearly all security insurance policies will state that guards must be fully screened to BS7858
- Ask your guards - see if the information they give you matches what your supplier tells you.
We rely on security guards to protect our business; we rely on event security to protect our children, and we rely on loss prevention officers to reduce loss from our stores. The fact of the matter is, the downward spiral since the Private Security Industry Act came into force back in 2001 has left us in a situation that a client is rarely getting what they're promised; instead of getting a security guard, they're often getting a bum on a seat with a plastic card that says they're licensed to do the job. With a largely transient workforce, the reality is that the staff have no connection, no loyalty, and no interest in doing a good job, leading to the situations we see playing out in real time as it makes the front page news. Make no mistake, this isn't labour provision, it's labour laundering, it's exploitation, and it's often slipping in to the realms of modern slavery.
With all of the legislation that's perceived as surrounding the security industry, you may find yourself saying out loud "what's he going on about, it can't be that bad" - the fact is that the current shape of the security industry is that compliance stops once someone has an SIA licence; businesses do not have to be licensed and are currently un-regulated (other than directors having to be licensed); The Approved Contractor scheme is voluntary and has under 800 companies out of the estimated 20,000+ security companies in the UK opted in, it's also very expensive (as a micro business, we spend over £4000 a year in audit and membership fees). Whether it's ACS, ISO9001, or COP119 and for all the vetting and screening that's required by ACS companies and the insurance companies of all security companies, it still seems possible for companies to circumvent the rules to cut costs.
How does this affect you
On paper, cheaper security looks harmless. In reality it shifts risk from your supplier straight onto your balance sheet. It also shifts it onto your staff, your visitors, and your reputation. Some example situations where things can go wrong very quickly and the associated costs of business:
- The uninsured guard - when it comes to a high value theft on site, the insurance company can (and likely will) refuse to settle a claim where they can prove the guard on duty wasn't screened to BS7858
- The sleazy guard - when your guests feel unsafe because the international security company has subbed out the guard so many times they have no control
- The sleeping guard - when your site is left effectively unattended due to the fact the guard comes to work with the intention to sleep, having carried out a full day in another job
- The tax fraud - If your guards are not on the payroll, they're likely circumventing tax (and also national insurance). The excuse often given is that "the guards work for multiple companies", but since HMRC rolled out RTI, the reality is that tax codes are far more fluid than they once were and the issue of guards being "Basic Rated" for second jobs is largely a thing of the past.
- The untrained guard - With everyone being paid rock bottom and the margins being kept low, the standard of guards is typically going to be lower than it would be with structured CPD training in place; whether it be subjects like first aid and mental health awareness, or those security-specialisations that make the guard an asset rather than an expense.
As a buyer, it's not easy to quantify the value provided by a good quality security guard from a quality provider; its' a role where we're only typically noticed when we fail and the importance of us not failing can potentially range from protecting machinery, stopping a building from going up in smoke, or, in the most extreme cases, the Manchester Arena Public Inquiry where the coroner drew direct attention to the lack of training amongst the security team on that fateful night. In all the years I've been doing this job, I can count on one hand the number of complaints I've received that come down to the way guards do their jobs - it's a fact of life at K9 Protection that the guards that apply to work for us and think they're going to come to work to sleep on your dime, use your site as their own personal Netflix cinema, or do the bare minimum to scrape through a shift don't tend to stick around very long - typically speaking, once a guard has been with us a couple of months they tend to either stay around for a very long time (we have guards who've been with us for 11 years) or remain friends of the company who we'd welcome back if the right position became available.
What good looks like
- Named contract manager, not a generic inbox
- Pay structure explained clearly (PAYE, holiday, pension)
- Screening to BS7858 and evidence available on request
- Site-specific assignment instructions and documented training
- Clear welfare rules: rest breaks, maximum hours, fatigue management & effective lone worker management
- Transparent subcontracting policy (or none at all)
The security industry will not be fixed by another training module, another badge scheme, or another glossy accreditation logo on a website. None of those things touch the root cause. The root cause is that the industry has been allowed to separate the licence in a guard's pocket from the employment reality behind it.
When labour becomes a spreadsheet trick rather than a profession, everything else decays. Standards fall. Loyalty disappears. Training becomes an inconvenience instead of an investment. Guards stop seeing themselves as custodians of your sites and start seeing themselves as shift fillers. The result is not just poor service. It is silent risk building up behind the scenes until something goes badly wrong.
This cannot be solved by enforcement alone. HMRC can prosecute. The SIA can issue guidance. Trade bodies can audit. None of it matters if the buying behaviour stays the same. As long as contracts are awarded to prices that cannot exist legally, the market will keep producing providers willing to bend reality to make the numbers work.
Legitimacy has a cost. It always has. Paying people properly, screening them properly, insuring them properly, and investing in their development costs money. It also buys stability, accountability, professionalism, and something that cannot be itemised on an invoice: people who actually care whether your business is still standing in the morning.
So the question is not whether you can get security cheaper. You almost always can. The real question is what you are willing to tolerate happening in order to achieve it.
Security is not about fences, dogs, or licence cards. It is about trust placed in human beings. An industry that cannot treat its own people as legitimate workers cannot plausibly claim to protect anything else.
