We don’t train close protection officers. Here is what we tell the people who ask.
We are asked about training often enough that a page is more useful than another email. We do not run courses and we take no introduction fee from anyone who does — so what follows is simply what we would tell a friend before they spent several thousand pounds.
What the licence requires
Close protection is a licensable activity in the United Kingdom under the Private Security Industry Act 2001. To work, you need an SIA Close Protection licence, which means completing an approved close protection qualification with a recognised awarding organisation, holding a current first-aid certificate, passing identity and criminality checks, and paying the licence fee. The SIA publishes the current requirements and fees on its own site, and those are the only figures worth trusting.
The course is a licence to begin, not a qualification to be trusted with someone’s family. Nobody in this industry is any good on the day they qualify, and the honest firms will tell you the same.
Choosing a provider
Training quality in this sector varies enormously and price is a poor guide either way. Five questions separate the serious centres from the rest:
- Is the qualification delivered by a recognised awarding organisation, and is the centre approved to deliver it?
- What is the total cost — course, first aid, the SIA licence application and the DBS check — not just the headline fee?
- How many candidates are on a course, and how much of it is practical rather than classroom?
- What exactly is promised afterwards? “Guaranteed work” is the clearest warning sign in this industry.
- Will they put you in touch with recent past candidates who are not in their marketing?
No training provider can guarantee you work. Any that says otherwise is selling you the thing you most want to hear, which is the oldest trick in the trade.
What the job is actually like
It is mostly waiting, driving, standing, and being pleasant to people who would rather you were not there. The work is irregular and often self-employed; the first year is the hardest and the least well paid; and the officers who last are the ones who are calm, punctual, discreet and easy to have around — not the ones who were best on the mats. If that description sounds dull, this is probably not the career you are imagining.
Once you are licensed
We keep a network of officers we work with and we do read applications from newly licensed CPOs, though we are honest that most of our work goes to people with experience behind them. If you want to be on our radar, the careers page is the right door — not this one.