Last Updated on October 5, 2026
This guide explains how security guarding and door supervision are priced in the UK. It quotes no hourly rates, because Whito has not yet collected security pricing and will not invent it. The figures below are official licence costs. When Whito runs its security rate collection, published rates only, the dated results will be published here.
The licence under every hour
Every licensable security worker holds an SIA licence for the specific activity, and the individual licence costs £204 from April 2026, up from the rebated £184 that applied for the previous six years (gov.uk, read 5 October 2026). Door supervision and security guarding are separate licence types. The licence, training to get it, and the vetting around it sit inside every honest hourly rate before a guard has stood anywhere.
What an hourly charge rate contains
The charge rate is not the guard’s wage. It carries the wage, holiday pay, employer’s National Insurance and pension, insurance, vetting, uniforms, scheduling and supervision, and the firm’s margin. Stack those up against the rate you were quoted and the arithmetic is often the whole due diligence: a charge rate at or barely above the legal minimum wage plus on-costs is telling you, openly, that something on that list is not being paid for.
Door supervision is a different quote
Door supervision carries its own licence type, late hours, and venue risk, and is commonly priced above static guarding. A guarding rate quoted for door work is a wrong number from a firm that either does not know the difference or hopes you do not.
Contract shape moves the price
Long contracts with predictable rotas price lower per hour than one-off nights. TUPE, where incoming contractors inherit existing staff, shapes bids on takeovers. And Approved Contractor Scheme status, the SIA’s business-level mark, appears in procurement scoring, which is why serious firms state it and serious buyers ask.
The questions that protect you
Which SIA licence types will the staff on my job hold, and may I check badges on the licence checker? What legal entity am I contracting with, and does it match your brand? What is inside the charge rate: holiday, NI, pension, insurance? Are you an SIA Approved Contractor? The firms worth hiring answer all four in the first meeting.
ed, and gave a registration number twice. https://whito.co.uk/gas-engineers/research/ai-gas-engineer-recommendations-gas-safe/. Free to quote with a link.Corrections and right of reply
If your business is named in this research and you think we have a fact wrong, email hello@whito.co.uk. We check it against the register, correct it within five working days if we are wrong, and publish your statement alongside if you want us to. Full route: corrections, right of reply and removals.
Questions
Can I trust an AI answer that says a gas engineer is Gas Safe registered?
Treat it as a claim to check. On 3 October 2026, 36 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode in 12
