How to Start a Security Company in the UK: A Practical Guide

Starting a manned guarding company in the UK is not like starting most small businesses. You can register the company in an afternoon. Everything after that, licensing your people, vetting them properly, insuring the business and winning your first contract, takes longer and has to be done in the right order. Here is what actually has to happen.

Register the company

Most guarding businesses trade as a private limited company. To set one up with Companies House you need at least one director, at least one shareholder (who can be the same person), a registered office address, and a SIC code that describes what the business does. You must register before you start trading, and once registered a director takes on ongoing legal duties: keeping accounting records, filing a confirmation statement and annual accounts, and paying Corporation Tax on profits. None of this is specific to security. It is the same process as any other limited company, and it is worth getting an accountant to handle the filings from day one rather than learning company law and guarding at the same time.

SIA licensing: staff, and yes, sometimes you

Anyone carrying out a licensable activity under contract for services needs an SIA licence. For a guarding company the activity that matters most is security guarding itself, alongside door supervision, close protection, cash and valuables in transit, public space surveillance (CCTV monitoring) and key holding, depending on what you offer. Every guard you deploy on a contract needs a current licence for the activity they are performing, checked before they start.

Directors are not automatically exempt. If you are a director of a company whose staff carry out licensable activities, and you manage or supervise them, you need an SIA licence yourself, even if you never personally guard a site. The one that applies to a manager or director in that position is the non-front line licence: it requires an identity check and a criminal record check, but not the licence-linked training a front-line guard has to complete. If you also intend to work the door or the gate yourself, that is front-line work and needs a front-line licence with the full training behind it. Check your own situation against the SIA's current guidance before you rely on this, because licensing rules on exemptions do get refined.

BS 7858 vetting before anyone starts

Before you deploy anyone, most clients and every ACS assessor will expect vetting carried out to BS 7858, the British Standard for screening individuals working in a secure environment. In practice that means identity verification, right to work checks, a five-year employment history check with gaps explained, and criminal record and reference checks, completed and documented before the person starts on site, not backfilled afterwards. Get this process built and consistent before you take on your first guard, because retrofitting vetting records for staff you already deployed is exactly the gap an assessor or a client audit will find.

Insurance you need before you can legally employ anyone

Employers' liability insurance is a legal requirement the moment you take on your first member of staff, even part-time or temporary, and the cover has to be at least £5 million from an authorised insurer. You must display the certificate, and going without adequate cover carries a daily fine enforced by the HSE. Beyond that legal minimum, guarding companies typically also carry public liability insurance (covering damage or injury to third parties, which most client contracts will require as a condition of the tender) and professional indemnity cover if you offer any advisory or risk-assessment services alongside guarding. Get quotes from a broker who already covers security companies. This piece won't quote premiums, they vary too much by headcount, licensable activities and claims history to be useful here, but budget for the cover before you price your first contract, not after you've won it.

ACS: not required, but expect clients to ask

The SIA Approved Contractor Scheme is voluntary in law. Nobody makes you join it. In practice, a lot of public-sector and larger commercial procurement either requires ACS or scores it heavily, so most companies with any ambition beyond a handful of small private clients end up going for it eventually. You need to have been trading and supplying licensable security services under contract for at least 12 months before you can apply, so it is not a day-one concern, it is something to design your record-keeping around from day one so you are ready when you do apply. What ACS involves and why it matters covers the scheme itself in more depth, and BS 7858 vetting explained goes further into the vetting standard ACS assessors check against.

Your first contracts

Your first clients are rarely the ones who find you cold. They are more often a personal contact, a subcontract from a larger contractor who needs extra coverage, or a small local business that wants a guard on a gate or a retail unit. Price the contract properly: know your fully loaded cost per guard hour (wages, employer's National Insurance, holiday pay, uniform, training, licensing and insurance) before you quote, not after. A contract priced to just cover wages will not survive a guard calling in sick or a client asking for extra patrols. Get the assignment instructions for each site written properly from the start too: name the site, its specific risks, access points and emergency contacts, rather than a generic guard-duties template copied across every client. That habit costs you nothing on your first contract and saves you a scramble later when a client or an ACS assessor asks to see it.

Tooling from the start

It's tempting to run your first few guards on a WhatsApp group and a spreadsheet, and plenty of companies do exactly that for the first year. The problem is the habits you build in that first year are the ones you're still running when you have thirty guards and a client asking for proof a patrol happened at 2am. Building in a proper record from the start, who's licensed, who's vetted, who clocked in and where, costs less time than it looks like at five guards, and it means you're not migrating years of paper and spreadsheet history later. TacDesk's SIA licence tracking is on TacFree, so it's there from your very first hire at no cost, and the Compliance module is available once you're on a paid plan and starting to think about BS 7858 vetting records and ACS readiness in one place instead of a filing cabinet.

Start free and get your licensing and vetting records built properly from guard one, or book a demo if you want to see how it fits before your first contract goes live.