The Security Industry Authority (SIA) updated its licence applications report on Thursday 22 October. The file has a refresh date of 1 October 2026, and its October row holds only a handful of applications, so this post uses full months up to September 2026.
What the figures show
Close protection applications totalled 3,990 in the twelve months from October 2025 to September 2026. In the twelve months before that, October 2024 to September 2025, they totalled 4,607. That is 617 fewer, down 13.4 per cent.
The fall is concentrated in the last six months. From April to September 2026 the monthly counts were 234, 247, 294, 276, 261 and 315, a total of 1,627. The same six months of 2025 totalled 2,223, so the 2026 figure is 26.8 per cent lower. In January, February and March 2026 the counts were 388, 386 and 447. September 2026, at 315, was 5.1 per cent below September 2025, at 332.
Across all eight sectors the file covers, applications totalled 180,258 in the latest twelve months against 195,580 in the previous twelve, down 7.8 per cent. Door supervision, the largest sector, fell from 141,785 to 125,343, down 11.6 per cent. Security guarding rose from 17,906 to 19,577, up 9.3 per cent. Close protection made up about 2.2 per cent of the total, against about 2.4 per cent a year earlier.
What the figures do not say
The report gives no reasons for the changes. The sector table counts applications, not people and not licences in force. It does not split sector figures between first-time and repeat applicants: the first-time and repeat table covers paid applications and is not broken down by sector. The report does not say whether an application covering more than one sector is counted in each. Its decisions table is also not broken down by sector, so it cannot show how many close protection applications were granted or refused.
What it means for firms and buyers
This is Ops Con's reading of the figures, not SIA commentary.
A fall in applications could reflect fewer new entrants, fewer renewals, or both. The file cannot say which, so treat it as a prompt to ask rather than a finding.
Firms that recruit close protection operators should watch the supply of newly licensed people over the coming months. If the fall in applications is mostly new entrants, the pool would be expected to thin later, not now. The file does not confirm that.
Close protection and door supervision both fell, while security guarding applications rose over the same period, so the all-sector total is not a guide to close protection.
