The Security Industry Authority's review of licence-linked qualifications reaches a milestone this summer. Per the regulator's published timeline, final qualification specifications publish in summer 2026, industry preparation runs from autumn 2026 into spring 2027, and the new qualifications become mandatory in spring 2027.
The review covers core content, safety-critical skills including physical intervention and searching, counter-terrorism training, how first aid skills are demonstrated, English language testing, and emerging challenges the regulator groups under social media auditors and new technologies.
Close protection is named directly. The review asks whether there is the right amount of content in key specialist areas such as close protection. That is the question being consulted on. It is not, at the time of writing, an answer.
That distinction is worth holding onto, because a good deal of secondary commentary is already running ahead of the source material. Summaries circulating in the trade press and on training provider sites describe specific new prerequisites as though they were settled policy, including particular first aid qualification levels attached to close protection refreshers. The regulator's own published material does not currently state those requirements. It states that the review will examine how first aid skills are demonstrated.
For operators the practical position is straightforward. Nothing has changed yet. Your current licence and current qualifications remain what they are. The thing to watch is the publication of the final specifications, because that is the document that will actually determine what a renewal looks like from spring 2027.
If you are planning training spend or scheduling refreshers over the next eighteen months, it is worth waiting for the specifications rather than buying against a summary of them. Training providers have a commercial interest in early certainty that the regulator has not yet provided.
We will cover the specifications when they publish, against the source document rather than the commentary.
