SIA licence types, and which one actually covers the job

The SIA licenses activity, not people in the abstract. An individual can hold more than one licence, but each one is granted for a defined sector, and it authorises the licensable activity within that sector and nothing outside it. Two officers can look identical on a roster — same uniform, same site — and still not be interchangeable.

The sectors, broadly

The SIA publishes the current list of licensable sectors and it is worth reading directly rather than relying on a summary, because scope and naming have shifted before and will again. In broad terms, the sectors that come up most often in contracted guarding work look something like this.

• –Security Guarding — static and mobile guarding, the sector most contracted officers hold
• –Door Supervision — venues where alcohol is served or entertainment is licensed
• –CCTV (Public Space Surveillance) — monitoring public space CCTV, distinct from watching a private site's own cameras
• –Close Protection — personal protection work, with its own separate training route
• –Cash and Valuables in Transit — collecting, transporting or delivering cash or valuables
• –Key Holding — holding keys and responding to alarm activations

A guarding licence does not authorise door supervision, and a door supervision licence does not authorise cash-in-transit work, even though all three involve a person in uniform managing risk on a client's premises. The licence is scoped to the sector it was granted for.

Reading a licence correctly

A licence carries the holder's name, a licence number, the sector it covers, an expiry date, and whether it is a frontline or non-frontline licence — see frontline versus non-frontline licensing for what that distinction changes in practice. All of it is worth checking, not just the expiry date, because the sector field is the one most likely to be assumed rather than read.

The SIA's public register is the authoritative source for current status, and it is worth checking there rather than trusting a photograph of a card, which can be out of date, altered, or simply belong to someone else presenting it as their own.

Where sector mistakes actually happen

In practice this goes wrong at the point of short-notice cover, when whoever is filling a gap reaches for anyone with a valid-looking licence rather than checking the sector printed on it matches the post. It also happens when an officer moves between contracts that sit in different sectors, and the assumption carries over from the last posting rather than being checked against the new one.

Getting the sector wrong is not a lesser version of an expired licence. Licensable activity carried out under the wrong sector is still unlicensed activity for that purpose, with the same exposure as no licence at all — see what actually happens when an SIA licence expires mid-contract for how that plays out operationally.

Where the wrong licence gets discovered

Licence type errors are rarely deliberate and rarely caught internally. An officer holds a valid licence, the record shows a valid licence, and the mismatch between the type held and the duties actually performed only becomes visible when somebody looks specifically — a client audit, an inspection, or an incident that prompts scrutiny of who was on the post.

The underlying cause is usually that the post's requirements are not recorded anywhere the rostering decision can see them. Officers are matched to shifts on availability and general suitability, and the specific licence requirement lives in someone's head or in the contract document.

Common mistakes

• –Recording that an officer is licensed without recording which type
• –Post requirements not recorded where rostering decisions are made
• –Assuming a licence covers duties it may not
• –Duties evolving on a post without the licensing position being revisited
• –No check when an officer moves between contracts with different requirements
• –Relying on the officer to raise it

One practical test: match the post, not the person

Take three posts across your contracts and write down what the officer on each actually does during a shift. Then check what the licence held covers.

Mismatches are rarely deliberate; they emerge when duties drift — a supervisor covering posts during shortages, a control-room role taking on site attendance, a static post acquiring a patrol. None of those trigger a review, which is why the check has to be periodic rather than at recruitment.

• –Record what each post requires, where rostering can see it
• –Record licence type alongside validity, not just that one is held
• –Re-check when duties change, not only when people do
• –Treat a supervisor covering posts as a change worth reviewing
• –Confirm categories against current SIA guidance, which is revised