Considering a career in the security industry?

Currently, if you asked 100 security officers if embarking on a career in the security industry is a good idea, 95 of them would say you’d be nuts for considering it.

A couple of years ago, I would quite possibly have thought the same.

But times are changing, and just maybe, now is the absolute best time to make the move!

Firstly, is it the job for you?

Everything a security officer does revolves around the protection of people and property. Whether you work in a supermarket or in a large corporate office, a factory gatehouse or a building site, a college or on the door at a nightclub, your core responsibility is to ensure the safety of the public, employees or visitors to your assignment, and to prevent financial loss by theft, damage or careless behaviour.

It is a huge responsibility and would suit anyone with the desire to make their environment better, or someone that genuinely wants to make a difference. You need to want to be a “protector”, and choosing a career in the security industry should be done for the right treasons. I’m a former Police Officer and a similar mindset is required in the private security industry, with the benefit that security officers generally have far less paperwork to do!

What would you get from the role?

Firstly, I’ll address the elephant in the room. Pay. It is abysmal. At the moment…… But keep the faith as times are changing, but I’ll talk more about changes to the industry a bit later.

“Security Officer” is much more than your average job however. Consider this:

• Any person that you do not admit to a site as they did not have the correct credentials, may have been there to steal sensitive corporate data which would have caused financial catastrophe to your client.
• Every time you clear an obstruction from a fire exit, that may have been the route taken during a real fire later that day, that would have led to loss of life if you had not done your job properly.
• The punter trying to get in to the nightclub, that you thoroughly searched and found carrying a well concealed knife, may have been suffering a psychotic break and could otherwise have maimed, injured or killed revellers inside.
• The member of staff you found unconscious on the toilet floor during your routine patrol may have died if you had not found them, and were not trained in CPR.

Do you see what I mean about the level of responsibility? There are hundreds of potential examples, pretty much all of which have happened. When you go home after a quiet shift, don’t say that nothing happened. Change your perception. Think like this, “because I did my job, nothing bad happened”! A lot of people have difficulty getting their head around the unfortunate fact that most of the time, doing your job well means that nothing happens, nobody will notice, and there is precious little recognition for a job well done as a result. You need to take personal satisfaction in your own professionalism and dedication which isn’t always an easy thing to do, but when you look at yourself in the mirror you can be proud that your role is honest, decent, and vitally important.

Anyone that derides you or treats you with scorn for “just being security”, is simply another one of the woefully ignorant masses, so, if they will listen, take the time to educate them! There is no such thing as “just” security.

Be warned, however. If you can’t develop this mindset, and you become, complacent, disinterested or even lazy, as is highly possible when all of your working days start to feel the same, you can absolutely 100% guarantee that sooner or later, something disastrous will happen on your watch. Worst of all, it doesn’t matter if you were fully alert and professional for 99 days out of the last 100, you will not be praised for the 99 days, but you will be out of the door for the 1 day when you were not focussed on the job, and something went wrong as a result. This is a universal truth that all experienced security officers will have witnessed, so please take my word for it and don’t learn through your own personal unfortunate experience.

What are the benefits?

Security officers are in demand, everywhere, and in every field of the industry, so once you are SIA-licensed you won’t be out of work. If you don’t like an employer or an assignment you do not need to feel trapped, there are always other options out there.

Security is a huge industry with companies always evolving and changing so there are a myriad of possibilities for advancement. If you want a long-term career, then it will always be possible. I have 2 important tips however. If you do a good job at a particular site, and instead of rewarding you with promotion or a better paid role, your employer just leaves you where you are in order to keep the client happy, say goodbye and find a new more enlightened company. Loyalty is a 2-way street after all. Secondly, and possibly more importantly, if you take some advanced training, take part in Continuing Professional Development, join an industry membership organisation and make your management aware of your enthusiasm and engagement, doors will quickly open to you. Display the right attitude and commitment, and good things will happen.

When you start to move into senior supervisor roles or operations management, you will be glad to hear that pay and benefits improve considerably.

What does the future hold?

There is a shortage of professional, reliable, security officers in the UK at the moment and this looks set to be the case for at least the next couple of years. Maybe much longer. As a result, this lack of supply and high demand for staff, should eventually lead to salaries increasing to attract the right people.

An increase in training and testing standards should also lead to an improvement in the quality of the workforce, and assist with the professionalisation of the industry, which will have the knock-on effect of improving the image of security officers, dispelling many of the negative perceptions and fundamentally improving the general level of respect.

With crime rates going up, Police disappearing from our streets in case they end up looking bad on YouTube videos (sic), and the ever present threat of terrorist activity, demand for security officers is not going to dwindle any time soon.

My advice?

If you were thinking about a career in security, now is the time to get trained up and licensed as the industry is only going one way. Up. And the opportunities will be many.