The Security Industry Authority (SIA) added its October 2026 reports to its licence holder and approved contractor data sets on Thursday 22 October. Both are snapshots taken as at 1 October 2026.
What the figures show
Licence holders, meaning people with an active licence, numbered 446,600 at 1 October. That is down from 447,558 at 1 September and 450,364 at 1 August, and down from 458,567 a year earlier: 11,967 fewer, or about 2.6 per cent.
Close protection differs on the year. There were 11,809 active close protection licences at 1 October, against 11,811 at 1 September, 11,866 at 1 August and 11,535 a year earlier: slightly down over the last two months, but up about 2.4 per cent on the year. Of those, 813 were held by women and 10,996 by men.
There were 714 approved contractors at 1 October, against 717 a month earlier and 734 a year earlier. Approvals for close protection stood at 22, the same as a month and a year earlier.
What the figures do not say
The SIA files give no reasons for the changes. The sector table counts licences, not people: some people hold more than one licence, so the sector figures do not add up to the number of licence holders, and the close protection figure cannot be read as a share of it. A business can also be approved in more than one sector.
What it means for buyers and firms
This is Ops Con's reading of the figures, not SIA commentary.
The year-on-year fall is not a close protection trend. Firms recruiting across several sectors should not read the headline number as a guide to the number of close protection licences, which is slightly higher than a year ago.
The approved list for close protection is short. Only 22 businesses hold approval under the Approved Contractor Scheme, or ACS, for close protection. A buyer who requires ACS should check that a firm's approval covers close protection specifically, not only another sector.
