How to check an SIA licence, and the firm behind the badge

Private security is licensed at the individual level: the person on your door or your site holds an SIA licence for a specific activity, and the licence is checkable in public. The firm behind them is checkable too, with one extra step. This guide covers both checks.

Checking a badge

The SIA runs a public licence checker, reachable from gov.uk, where a licence number returns the licence’s status and what it covers. Staff on licensable duties should be displaying the badge; the number on it is what you check. For a contract rather than a person, ask the firm for the licence numbers of the staff who will actually work your job, and check a sample. A firm that resists its own staff being checked has answered a different question.

Matching the licence type to the job

Licence types matter as much as the licence. Door supervision and security guarding are separate licences, and venues need the former for door work. Keyholding, close protection and CCTV operation are their own categories again. The check is not just “licensed”, it is “licensed for this”.

Tracing the firm behind the trading name

Security brands drift from legal entities through rebrands and subcontracting, and a brand cannot hold a contract, an entity does. Ask for the legal company name and number, verify it at Companies House, active, not newly reincarnated from a dissolved predecessor, and make sure the entity on the contract matches the one you checked. If the night’s staff are subcontracted, ask for the subcontractor’s entity too; the gap between the brand that sold the job and the entity that staffs it is where the trade’s problems live.

What ACS status is, and is not

The SIA’s Approved Contractor Scheme is a voluntary business-level accreditation. It is a meaningful procurement signal and worth asking about. It is not the licence, and a non-ACS firm with properly licensed staff is lawful. Treat ACS as a plus, licensed staff as the floor.

If you run a security firm

Publish the entity behind your brand, state the licence types your staff hold, offer badge checks before the customer asks, and name your ACS status accurately. Procurement teams already check all of this; consumer customers are learning to. The firm that makes checking effortless is the firm that wins the contract renewal.

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