Choosing a close protection course can be a minefield.
There are a lot of providers out there, and from the outside they look much the same. Similar photographs, similar promises, similar language about standards and outcomes.
It is a serious amount of your time and money to commit, and most people only find out whether they chose well after they have paid. So how do you approach that decision?
We are not going to name providers or run anyone down. That is not how we operate, and an anonymous swipe helps nobody. What we can do is tell you what we have learned from the people who come through our community, and cut some of the noise out.
Do your research, properly
This is the single most important thing, and it is the thing people skip.
Do not take one blog post as gospel, including this one. Do not take one mate's word either. Ask around, and ask several people, because they will not all say the same thing. Different instructors, different cohorts, different outcomes afterwards.
Two people can do the same course in the same year and come away with completely different experiences.
Get a few opinions before you commit. You are buying weeks of your life and a significant amount of money, and the research costs you nothing but a few conversations.
Be careful of anyone selling you the dream
If a provider is implying that three weeks of training puts you straight onto a task as a CPO at £500 a day, be very careful. Anyone making that claim is overpromising. It is not how this industry works and it is not what happens to almost anybody.
Most of the honest stories about work after a close protection course involve hard graft and low level jobs at the start, because that is what entry level means. Your first work may well look like residential security or event work rather than close protection. That is not a failure and it is not a step backwards. That is how you build a reputation, meet the people who hire, and work your way towards the tasks you actually want.
No course can skip that stage for you.
If a provider implies otherwise, they are describing their own brochure rather than the industry you are about to walk into.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That old line holds here as firmly as it holds anywhere else.
Check what the qualification actually is
Two things worth looking at closely.
If a course is going to let you work in the UK, it needs to lead to an SIA licence linked qualification. A course can be well delivered and still not do that.
And be careful with level claims. If a provider is advertising Level 4 or Level 5, look for the accreditation behind it. A level number without an awarding body behind it is a marketing choice, not a qualification.
Two stories from our members
We hear a lot of these. There are far too many to fit in one post, so here are two.
One member paid for a three week course that was advertised as fully qualifying attendees for close protection work in the UK. It was not an SIA licence approved course. He found that out afterwards.
Another was one of more than twenty people on a course sold with guaranteed work at the end of it. The guaranteed work turned out to be a video call with an operations manager, who explained that the company would be interviewing four of them.
Neither of those providers was breaking the law. In both cases the problem was the provider overselling what it actually delivered, not the member failing to check.
That is the awkward part about research. It reduces the risk, it does not remove it, and nobody should feel daft for having been sold something that was not what it said on the tin. But talking to several people who have actually done the course you are looking at is the best protection available, and it costs you nothing.
Invest wisely, even when someone else is paying
A close protection course is a serious investment. If you are using ELCAS, it is still your entitlement being spent and you only get to spend it once.
The provider you choose has a real effect on what happens next. Not because of a certificate, but because of who they know, whether they will pick up the phone for you afterwards, and whether their name means anything to the people doing the hiring.
Where we fit, and where we do not
We have skin in the game. We run a Close Protection course, so read this part knowing that.
What we try to do differently is be selective. Not everyone who applies is offered a place, and that is deliberate. When we say no, we say why, and we talk through what would make the difference or which other route might suit better. We would rather turn someone away than take their money for something that is not going to work for them. That is a model we take from RONIN, our partner, and it is one of the reasons we work with them.
If you want to work in hostile environments, go to RONIN SA.
Theirs is the gold standard, and we are not being polite about it.
It runs five weeks in South Africa, and it is intense. The syllabus covers ground a UK course is simply not able to: tactical firearms to handgun and carbine level, close quarter battle, protective driving, venue security and the legal side. Students come out holding the Qualsafe Level 3 Certificate in First Response Emergency Care alongside the firearms certification, so the medical is a real qualification rather than a morning on a mannequin.
The part that no UK provider can offer at all is the operational frontline ambulance shifts, which run on the Cape Town course. That is a real shift attending real emergencies with a working ambulance crew. There is no simulation that does the same job, and there is no way to run it here.
If you are aiming at the London market and the ultra high net worth end of it, that is what we are built for, and our trainers are still working the job they teach.
If you already did close protection in government service, look at the fast track route before you pay for a full course. AEC run the Level 3 Certificate for Close Protection Operatives in the Private Security Industry (Fast-Track) (RQF), which uses recognition of prior learning for people from backgrounds like the RMP Close Protection Unit, UKSF, Met Police RaSP and Police NPOC. It is five classroom days rather than three weeks, and it still leads to the SIA licence linked qualification. If that is you, there is no sense paying for training you have already had.
And if none of those describe you, there are other good providers out there. Go and find them, and do the research properly.
If you are not sure, ask
Ask us. If we do not know the answer, we will find someone who does.
Course details are on our website, and our team are happy to talk it through with you before you commit to anything, including if the answer turns out to be that we are not the right fit.
