What London Businesses Should Check Before Hiring a Security Guard Company
Security guarding in the UK is a regulated activity, yet a surprising number of contracts get signed on price alone. For a London business choosing a manned guarding provider, the difference between a well-run contract and a risky one usually comes down to three things: licensing, screening, and reporting. None of them are complicated, but all three are easy to skip past in a sales conversation.
Licensing is not optional, and it’s checkable
Anyone working as a security guard or mobile patrol officer in the UK must hold a valid licence from the Security Industry Authority (SIA) under the Private Security Industry Act 2001. This applies to the individual officer, not just the company employing them. It’s a reasonable and fair question to ask any prospective provider for the SIA licence category and number for the officers who will be deployed on your site, and the SIA register allows those numbers to be checked independently.
This matters because an unlicensed officer on site is not a grey area. It’s a compliance failure that exposes both the guarding company and, depending on the circumstances, the client that hired them.
Vetting is a separate question from licensing
SIA licensing confirms an officer is legally permitted to work in a security role. It doesn’t, on its own, tell you how thoroughly that person was vetted before being placed on your premises. That’s a separate standard: BS 7858, the British Standard covering pre-employment screening for security personnel, including identity verification, employment history checks, and confirmation of the right to work in the UK. Office Cleaning London
A provider that can speak fluently about both licensing and screening, and can show how the two fit together, is generally a safer bet than one that treats them as interchangeable.
Reporting is where quality actually shows up
The clearest indicator of how a contract will run day to day is what happens at the end of a shift. A guarding company that provides written Daily Activity Reports, timestamped, covering incidents, access logs, and anything out of the ordinary, gives you an audit trail you can actually use. A verbal “all quiet” handover doesn’t.
This becomes especially important on sites with higher turnover of visitors or contractors, such as construction sites and vacant properties, where the absence of a written record makes it far harder to establish what happened if something goes wrong.
What a provider needs from you to quote accurately
Most delays in getting a workable quote come down to missing information rather than complexity on the provider’s side. A security company will typically need:
- The site address and type of premises
- Any known risk factors or history of past incidents
- Number of officers required and the shift pattern
- Specific duties: access control, patrols, key holding, reporting requirements
- Start date, and whether this replaces an existing provider
Providing this upfront tends to produce a faster and more accurate quote than a general enquiry.
The questions worth asking before you sign
- Can you confirm the SIA licence category and number for the officers assigned to my site?
- What does your BS 7858 screening process actually cover?
- What does a shift report look like, and how quickly will I receive one?
- What’s your process if an officer can’t make a shift?
- Who do I contact out of hours if something goes wrong?
None of these questions should cause hesitation from a properly run provider. If they do, that’s useful information in itself.
Charles Alabi is COO of Citywide Security Company, a manned guarding provider operating across London.