As stated in the Government’s White Paper (Proposals for Regulation of the Private Security Industry in England and Wales, CM 4254) in March 1999, accurate statistics on the size of the private security industry have always been difficult to obtain. The most recent estimate contained in the White Paper was that in 1994 there were 162,000 licensable people, based on research by the Policy Studies Institute.
In their 2004-05 business plan the Security Industry Authority (SIA) estimated that the total licensable population was just over 221,000. The SIA has continued to update its estimates in the light of operational experience and the current estimate is that about 183,000 individuals require a licence. The majority of this change is due to the revision of the estimated size of the door supervisor sector. A breakdown of these figures by each type of licence is in the following table.
Sector 2004-05 business plan estimates Latest estimate Door supervisors 95,000 62,000 Security guards 125,000 120,000 Vehicle immobilisers 1,200 1,200 Total 221,200 183,200