How to hire a bodyguard in the UK — a straight checklist.

The five checks, expanded

1. 1. The licence. Under the Private Security Industry Act 2001, close protection is a licensed activity. Every officer working on your detail should hold a current SIA Close Protection licence, and the numbers are free to check on the SIA’s public register — a serious firm hands them over without hesitation.
2. 2. The vetting. A licence is the floor, not the ceiling. Ask what screening sits on top of it — BS 7858 (employment history, residency, financial standing and criminal record) is the recognised standard, and firms that take it seriously will say so unprompted.
3. 3. The insurance. Public liability of £5m is the credible benchmark for this work. Ask to see the certificate rather than take the figure on trust — it costs a serious firm nothing to produce.
4. 4. The paperwork. Nobody should deploy before you have a written proposal covering scope, personnel, dates and fees. Verbal agreements protect neither of you.
5. 5. The conversation itself. A good firm asks about your movements, your household and what has changed before it recommends anything. If a company proposes a package before it has asked you a single question, it is selling a product, not designing protection.

Red flags

• Any hint of armed protection for a UK engagement
• No licence number offered, or reluctance to give one
• Cash only, or no insurance certificate available
• A quote far below market — the saving is usually your risk, transferred back to you

How the engagement actually starts

From first contact to an officer at your door, the honest sequence runs: a private enquiry; a conversation about movements, household and what has changed; a written proposal; an NDA signed both ways; then the quiet work you never see — routes timed, venues walked, contact points agreed — before day one. With a week’s notice all of that happens at an unhurried standard. The compressed version can start from 24 hours’ notice when it must, and a firm should be straight with you about what compression costs: less advance work, priced planning time, and fewer officer options.

The contract itself should be shorter than you fear and clearer than you expect: scope, named personnel, dates and hours, fees with everything included listed, travel at cost, and the cancellation terms in plain figures. If any of those is missing, ask why before you sign — a firm that is vague on paper before an engagement will not become precise during one.

Direct to a firm, or through a platform

Marketplaces and staffing platforms now list “bodyguards” by the hour. The structural problem is accountability: a platform matches you with whoever is available, the vetting is the platform’s word rather than a named firm’s reputation, and when something goes wrong there is no single person whose job it is to answer for the whole engagement. Hiring a firm direct costs the same market rate and buys you one accountable point of contact, officers who work together rather than alongside each other, and someone with a reason to say no to work they cannot do properly. Whichever route you take, the five checks above do not change — a licence number is checkable whoever supplied it.

What a good first conversation feels like

Proportionate, not dramatic. A firm worth hiring listens before it proposes, and will tell you honestly if you need less than you feared — clients remember that longer than they remember an invoice. Confidentiality should be assumed rather than asked for: who you are and what you have engaged for stays between you and the firm, before, during and after.