Inside the £340M Manned Guarding Market

When most people think about the security industry, they think about alarms and CCTV cameras. The technology side of the market gets the headlines and the venture capital. But the largest single segment of the UK private security industry is far more traditional: manned guarding. Real people, in real uniforms, standing at real doors. It is a market worth approximately £340 million annually, and it is growing. The services it encompasses are broad — static guarding at commercial premises, mobile patrols across retail parks and industrial estates, event security at concerts and sporting venues, key holding and alarm response, and reception security at corporate offices. What ties them together is a deceptively simple value proposition: a trained, licensed, physical human presence providing security that technology alone cannot replicate.

The manned guarding sector employs hundreds of thousands of licensed security officers across the United Kingdom. It operates around the clock, every day of the year, across virtually every commercial sector. Hospitals, shopping centres, distribution warehouses, construction sites, office blocks, hotels, universities — all rely on manned guarding as a frontline security measure. And despite the rise of AI-powered surveillance and remote monitoring, demand for physical security personnel continues to increase.

Why Demand Is Surging

Several converging forces are driving growth in the manned guarding market. The most visible is the retail theft crisis. Shoplifting in England and Wales has reached record levels, with the Office for National Statistics reporting that shoplifting offences rose by over 30 per cent in the year to September 2024. Organised retail crime — groups systematically targeting stores for high-value goods — has become a persistent threat that electronic article surveillance and CCTV alone cannot address. Retailers are responding by deploying more manned security, both as a visible deterrent and as an operational response to in-store theft.

Corporate security budgets have also expanded. The post-pandemic return to office working brought with it a renewed focus on building security, access control, and staff safety. Companies that previously relied on keycard systems and remote monitoring are now investing in reception security officers and manned access points. The logic is straightforward: an unmanned reception desk in a multi-tenant office building is a liability. A staffed one is a controlled environment.

Event security has grown alongside the UK's recovering live events industry. Concerts, festivals, sporting events, and corporate gatherings all require licensed security personnel, often at significant scale. A major music festival may deploy several hundred security officers across multiple stages, perimeter points, and crowd management zones. The requirement is not optional — local authorities and venue licensing conditions mandate specific security staffing levels as a condition of the event proceeding.

Beyond retail and events, sectors including logistics, healthcare, education, and critical national infrastructure all contribute to sustained demand. Distribution centres and fulfilment warehouses require 24-hour security. NHS trusts deploy security officers across hospital sites to manage aggressive incidents and protect staff. Universities contract manned guarding for campus security, particularly during evening and overnight hours. Each of these represents stable, recurring contract revenue for security operators.

The Regulatory Landscape

The UK manned guarding industry is regulated by the Security Industry Authority, established under the Private Security Industry Act 2001. The SIA's remit is to regulate the private security industry, reduce criminality within it, and raise standards across the sector. For manned guarding operators, this regulation manifests in two primary ways: individual licensing and the Approved Contractor Scheme.

Every individual working in a front-line manned guarding role must hold a valid SIA licence. To obtain one, they must complete an approved training course covering conflict management, physical intervention awareness, and the legal powers and responsibilities of a security officer. They must also pass identity and criminal record checks. The licence is valid for three years and must be renewed. There is no exemption — an unlicensed individual cannot legally work as a security guard in the United Kingdom.

For security companies, the Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) represents the industry's quality benchmark. While ACS registration is not a legal requirement to operate a security business, it has become a de facto prerequisite for winning significant contracts. Most corporate clients, local authorities, and public sector bodies will only award security contracts to ACS-approved companies. The scheme assesses companies against 78 indicators across 7 criteria: Strategy, Service delivery, Commercial relationship management, Financial management, Resource management, People, and Leadership.

Each criterion requires the operator to demonstrate documented policies, implemented procedures, and measurable outcomes. Under Resource management, for example, the company must show how it recruits, vets, trains, and deploys its workforce. Under Financial management, it must demonstrate financial stability, transparent pricing, and proper payroll management. Under Service delivery, it must evidence how it manages client contracts, responds to incidents, and maintains service quality.

Alongside SIA regulation, the industry operates within established British Standards. BS 7499 provides a code of practice for static site guarding and mobile patrol services, defining operational standards for everything from uniform presentation to incident reporting. BS 7858 sets the standard for security screening of individuals employed in a security environment, covering pre-employment checks that go beyond standard DBS requirements. Compliance with these standards is not merely aspirational — ACS assessment incorporates adherence to relevant British Standards as part of its scoring methodology.

The Economics of Manned Guarding

The economics of manned guarding are straightforward but require discipline. The business model is built on the difference between what the client pays per hour and what the operator pays the security officer, after accounting for employment costs, overheads, and margin.

Typical charge-out rates for a standard static guarding officer in England range from £14 to £20 per hour, depending on location, contract size, and service level. In London and the South East, rates are higher, often reaching £22 to £26 per hour for manned guarding at commercial premises. Specialist roles — close protection officers, dog handlers, fire marshals — command premium rates that can exceed £30 per hour.

On the cost side, the security officer's wage is the largest single expense. With the National Living Wage at £12.21 per hour from April 2025, and many operators paying above this to attract and retain licensed staff, total employment costs including employer's National Insurance, pension contributions, holiday pay, and sick pay allowances typically run to £14 to £16 per hour per officer. Add in uniform provision, training and development, management overheads, insurance, and administration, and the fully loaded cost per deployed hour often sits between £15 and £18.

This leaves operating margins that are tight but reliable, typically in the range of 8 to 12 per cent. The margin may appear slim compared to technology businesses, but it comes with a crucial advantage: predictability. Manned guarding contracts are typically 12 to 36 months in duration, with many running on rolling annual renewals. A security company with 20 contracts averaging £3,000 per month has £720,000 in annualised recurring revenue. Client retention rates in the sector are high — switching security providers involves operational disruption, re-vetting of staff, and transition risk that most clients prefer to avoid.

The capital requirements for starting a manned guarding business are relatively modest compared to other industries. There is no factory to build, no inventory to stock, no expensive equipment to purchase. The primary investments are SIA licensing, employer's liability and public liability insurance, professional documentation and compliance systems, and the working capital to cover the gap between paying staff weekly and invoicing clients monthly. A well-structured manned guarding startup can become operational with initial capital of £15,000 to £30,000, making it one of the most accessible entry points in the regulated business landscape.

The Recruitment Challenge

If the economics are favourable and the market is growing, the obvious question is: what makes this difficult? The answer is people. Recruiting, licensing, training, and retaining a workforce of security officers who work unsociable hours in often demanding environments is the single greatest operational challenge in the manned guarding industry.

The SIA licensing requirement creates a bottleneck at the entry point. Before an individual can work a single shift as a security officer, they must complete an approved training course, pass the examination, submit their licence application with supporting identity documents and a criminal record check, and wait for the SIA to process and issue the licence. The total time from initial training enrolment to holding a valid licence can be four to eight weeks. For a security company with an urgent staffing requirement, this delay can mean the difference between winning and losing a contract.

Training costs are borne either by the individual or the employer. The Level 2 Award in Door Supervision or the Level 2 Certificate in Providing Security Services typically costs between £180 and £350. Some operators offer to fund training for new recruits in exchange for a commitment to work a minimum number of hours, but this introduces risk — the individual may complete the training, obtain their licence, and then take employment with a competitor offering a higher hourly rate.

Retention is the industry's perennial challenge. Security officers work nights, weekends, bank holidays, and in all weather conditions. The work can be monotonous during quiet periods and high-pressure during incidents. Pay, while improving, remains at or near the lower end of the labour market. The result is turnover rates that many operators report at 25 to 40 per cent annually. Every departure triggers a cycle of recruitment, training, vetting, and site induction that erodes margin and strains management resources.

Successful operators address retention through a combination of competitive pay, career progression pathways, additional training opportunities, and genuine investment in staff welfare. The companies that treat security officers as a disposable commodity tend to deliver inconsistent service, lose contracts, and find themselves in a downward spiral. The companies that invest in their workforce build stable teams, deliver reliable service, and retain clients for years.

How Successful Operators Differentiate

In a market where the core service — a licensed officer at a location — appears commoditised, differentiation is everything. The operators that build sustainable, profitable businesses do so through several consistent strategies.

Technology integration is the most visible differentiator. Leading manned guarding companies do not position technology as a replacement for personnel but as a force multiplier. Officers equipped with mobile patrol apps that log GPS-verified checkpoint scans, real-time incident reporting systems, and integrated CCTV monitoring capabilities deliver a measurably superior service to clients. The data these systems generate — patrol completion rates, incident response times, access control logs — provides clients with transparency and accountability that a paper-based operation cannot match.

ACS accreditation remains the most powerful commercial differentiator. An ACS-approved company signals to potential clients that it has been independently assessed against the SIA's 78 indicators, that its operational standards meet defined benchmarks, and that it is subject to ongoing audit and review. For public sector tenders and large corporate procurement processes, ACS accreditation is frequently a mandatory requirement. Operators without it are excluded before their proposal is even read.

Client retention through service quality is the foundation of long-term profitability. The manned guarding companies that thrive are those that treat every contract as a relationship, not a transaction. Regular service reviews, proactive communication about security risks, willingness to adapt staffing levels to changing client needs, and consistent delivery of the basics — officers arriving on time, in correct uniform, properly briefed — create the kind of client loyalty that keeps contracts renewing year after year.

Long-term contracts and preferred supplier agreements provide revenue visibility that enables investment in staff and systems. A company with a portfolio of multi-year contracts can plan recruitment, negotiate better insurance rates, invest in technology, and weather short-term market disruptions. A company running month-to-month with no contract security is one client departure away from a cashflow crisis.

Starting a Security Company: What It Actually Takes

The mechanics of starting a manned guarding company are more straightforward than most people assume. The regulatory framework, while rigorous, is clearly defined. The steps are known. The requirements are published. There are no hidden criteria and no subjective judgements about whether your business idea is viable.

The founder or a nominated director must hold a valid SIA licence in the relevant sector. This is non-negotiable. You cannot manage a manned guarding company without holding the licence yourself or having a licensed individual in a management role. The licence demonstrates that you have completed the required training, passed the background checks, and understand the legal framework within which the industry operates.

Insurance is the next requirement. Employer's liability insurance is a legal obligation for any business that employs staff. Public liability insurance is essential for any security company — your officers are working on client premises, often in public-facing environments, and the exposure to claims is real. Professional indemnity insurance provides additional protection against claims arising from advice or recommendations made to clients. A comprehensive insurance package for a startup manned guarding company typically costs between £2,000 and £5,000 annually, depending on projected turnover and headcount.

Then comes documentation. And this is where most aspiring security company founders stall. The ACS framework requires documented policies and procedures across every operational area. Health and safety policy. Equal opportunities policy. Data protection policy. Disciplinary and grievance procedures. Incident reporting procedures. Assignment instructions templates. Risk assessment methodology. Staff vetting procedures aligned to BS 7858. Operational procedures aligned to BS 7499. Financial controls. Quality management systems. Training matrices. Performance monitoring frameworks. The list extends to over one hundred individual documents, and every one of them must be sector-specific, internally consistent, and aligned to both SIA requirements and British Standards.

Writing this documentation from scratch, without sector expertise, takes six to twelve months. Many founders attempt it, produce documentation that is generic, inconsistent, or non-compliant, and either fail their ACS assessment or never apply in the first place. The documentation barrier is not about intelligence or capability — it is about specialist knowledge and volume. A safeguarding policy for a security company is not the same as a safeguarding policy for a care home. An incident reporting procedure for manned guarding is not the same as one for a construction site. Every document must reflect the specific regulatory, operational, and commercial context of the private security industry.

This is precisely where platforms like Zundara change the equation. A complete, sector-specific documentation package — covering every policy, procedure, template, and compliance framework a manned guarding company needs — eliminates the documentation bottleneck entirely. The founder can move from company formation to operational readiness in weeks rather than months, with documentation that is already aligned to ACS requirements, British Standards, and SIA expectations.

Many successful security companies begin by subcontracting to established operators. Larger security firms regularly subcontract overflow work, short-term assignments, and specialist deployments to smaller, licensed companies. This provides the startup with immediate revenue, real-world operational experience, and a track record that can be referenced when pursuing direct contracts. It is a low-risk entry strategy that allows the founder to build capability, train staff, and develop client relationships while maintaining cashflow.

Why This Is One of the Most Accessible Regulated Industries

The manned guarding sector sits in an unusual position within the broader landscape of regulated industries. It is regulated enough to have clear standards, defined frameworks, and published quality benchmarks. But it is not so heavily regulated that entry requires years of preparation, massive capital investment, or specialist qualifications that take decades to obtain.

Compare it to healthcare. Opening a CQC-registered care service requires a registered manager with specific qualifications and experience, a registration process that can take six months or more, premises that meet defined environmental standards, and staffing ratios that create significant payroll commitments before a single client is served. Compare it to aviation. Obtaining a CAA Air Operator's Certificate is a multi-year process requiring millions in capital, an accountable manager with extensive industry experience, and a fleet of aircraft with approved maintenance programmes.

Manned guarding asks for none of this. The barrier is not capital — you can start with a modest investment. The barrier is not premises — many security companies operate from home offices in their early stages. The barrier is not specialist equipment — a uniform, a radio, and a mobile phone cover the essentials. The barrier is documentation. Remove that barrier, and you are left with an industry that has clear standards, strong demand, recurring revenue, high client retention, and a regulatory framework that tells you exactly what a good security company looks like.

The contracts are sticky. Once a client has invested the time and effort to onboard a security provider — site surveys, assignment instructions, staff vetting, access protocols — they are unlikely to switch unless service quality deteriorates significantly. The revenue model is recurring. Security is not a one-off purchase; it is an ongoing service billed monthly against contracted hours. And the market is growing. Retail theft, corporate security requirements, event demand, and critical infrastructure protection are all expanding the addressable market for manned guarding services.

For an entrepreneur looking for a business with clear regulatory guidance, proven demand, recurring revenue, manageable startup costs, and a scalable operating model, manned guarding ticks every box. The framework is published. The standards are defined. The market is there. The only question is whether you have the operational documentation to meet the standard from day one — and that question now has a straightforward answer.

The Bottom Line

The UK manned guarding market is not glamorous. It does not attract the headlines that cyber security or AI surveillance technology generate. But it is a £340 million market built on fundamentals that every serious business operator should respect: recurring contracts, regulatory barriers that protect established operators from casual competition, margins that reward operational discipline, and demand that is driven by structural trends rather than fashion.

The sector's challenges are real — recruitment, retention, margin pressure, and the constant operational demands of a 24/7 workforce. But these challenges are known, documented, and solvable with proper systems and procedures. The companies that succeed are not the ones with the most creative marketing or the most aggressive pricing. They are the ones with the most robust operational frameworks, the best-trained staff, and the most consistent service delivery.

Starting a security company is not about having an idea. It is about having a system. The regulatory framework provides the structure. The market provides the demand. The documentation provides the operational backbone. And for those willing to do the work — or smart enough to start with the documentation already in place — the manned guarding market remains one of the most compelling business opportunities in the UK's regulated economy.