There is plenty of security work advertised online. The hard part is telling the good adverts from the rest.
Scroll any jobs feed and you will see the same roles dressed up a dozen ways. Some are solid. Some will waste a day of your life. A few will cost you money you never see again. It is worth learning to read one properly before you reply.
Here is what to look for, and what should make you close the tab.
The rate that hides the hours
The headline number catches your eye first. On its own it tells you very little.
An advert says £250 a day and you stop reading there. Do not. Ask what the day actually is. Ten hours or twenty? £250 across twelve hours is decent. The same £250 across an eighteen hour day with travel either side is not, once you do the sum on what you are really earning an hour.
So do the sum. Work the day rate back to what you take home per hour on your feet, then decide. The bigger number is not always the better one.
The number in the headline is not the deal. The hours behind it are.
"Guaranteed work" and other things that sound too good
Be very careful with any advert, or any course, that promises guaranteed work at the end of it.
Real work gets offered after someone has met you, checked you and decided you are right for a task. If it is guaranteed before any of that has happened, it is a sales pitch dressed as a job. The "work" often turns out to be a place in a queue, or an interview you were never really in the running for.
If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Which company are you actually working for?
To be clear, this is about the company hiring you, not the end client. You often will not know who the client is, and you should not expect to. But you should always know which company is engaging you and paying you.
A good advert makes that clear, up front or as soon as you have signed in to the platform it sits on. A poor one hides it. Most work reaches you through a company rather than straight from the client. Direct-from-client work is the minority, so working through a company is normal and nothing to worry about in itself. But watch for the chain. Work that has been sub-contracted down through two or three companies has had a cut taken at every step, and the rate that reaches you is what is left at the bottom. If nobody will tell you who is actually running the task or who pays you, that is worth pausing over.
Look at how they contact you, as well. A proper company emails from its own domain, not a free gmail or hotmail account. If the offer lands from a personal address with no company website behind it, that is worth a second look.
Either way, do your due diligence. Since most of your work will come through a company, the company is the thing worth researching. Look them up, and ask around your network, the odds are someone has worked for them. It is a small industry and it talks. A few messages will tell you whether a company pays on time and looks after its operators, or whether to leave it well alone.
Payment terms that never quite get pinned down
This is the big one, and it is where people get burned.
Before you commit, you want the payment terms in writing. When you invoice, how long until you are paid, and who pays you. A company that will not put that in writing is telling you something. Listen.
The worst of it is the outfit that takes the work, gets it delivered, and folds owing everyone money, only to start up again the next month under a new name. It happens more than it should, which is exactly why the company is worth checking before you commit. How long have they been going? Have they paid people you know, and on time?
A company that will not put its payment terms in writing is telling you something.
Vague is normal, up to a point
Here is the balance to strike, because this one is not black and white.
Confidentiality and discretion are central to security work, so some detail will always be held back. You may not learn who the client is, the exact address, or the finer points of the task until you are hired and briefed ahead of deployment. That is not a red flag. That is the job.
But discretion is not an excuse for telling you nothing. Whatever the role, you should still be able to get the fundamentals before you commit:
The dates
The location, at least in general terms
The pay rate
The payment terms
A rough description of the task
The skills required
The certificates and licences needed
The hours, or what a "day" actually means
What is covered, accommodation, travel, expenses or a per diem, and what is not
If a company will not give you even that, the problem is not discretion. It is either disorganisation, or something they would rather you did not ask about.
A word on WhatsApp groups
A lot of work moves through WhatsApp groups now, and they have their place. For a freelancer they can be one of the quickest ways to hear about a task, so use them.
Just take the same rules in with you. Everything above still applies to a job dropped into a group chat. And you can tell a fair bit about a company from how it writes. A clear, well put together message from someone who gives you the fundamentals is a better sign than a breathless one, full of typos, promising the earth. How a company writes to a group is usually how it runs a task.
Anything that asks you to pay to work
Be careful of any role that wants money out of you before you have earned a penny.
Registration fees to be "added to the books", paying for kit you will supposedly be reimbursed for later, or being told to buy a specific course as a condition of the job. Legitimate work does not ask you to pay your way onto it.
Be clear about what this does and does not mean, though. Normal costs are yours. Your licence, your basic kit, and your commute to a job whose location you knew when you accepted it. That is just part of working. The red flag is being asked to pay the company itself to get on its books, or to cover costs that should sit with them. If a company sends you to Rome, your travel is on them. Take a clearly local job that never mentioned travel, and your commute is on you.
So what does a good advert look like?
The opposite of all of the above.
It names the hours behind the day rate. It is clear about who you work for and how you get paid. It gives you the dates, the location and what you need to hold. And it does not promise the earth.
That is the standard worth holding out for, and it is the one we try to hold on our own jobs board.
How to protect yourself
You do not need to be cynical about all this. Just switched on.
Ask your questions at the interview or first conversation, that is what that stage is for. Get the rate, the hours and the payment terms confirmed before you say yes. Check the company and the people on the SIA register, and look for the Approved Contractor Scheme where it applies. Talk to operators who have worked for them. And know your own minimum rate, so you can walk away from the ones that pay low, late, or not at all.
The bottom line
A day rate is just a headline. A promise of work is not the same as money in the bank. And a company that will not tell you who it is, what it pays and when, has told you plenty already.
Read it twice. Ask the questions. Check the company. Do that and you will get burned far less often than the people who reply to the first big number they see.
Not sure about a company, a rate, or an advert that feels off? That is what the community is for. Our members and trusted partners have been round the block, and there is always someone you can reach out to for a steer before you commit. Join the community.
At a glance
Work the day rate back to an hourly rate. The hours behind the headline are the deal.
Guaranteed work before anyone has met you is a sales pitch, not a job.
Know which company you work for, the one paying you, not the end client. On a platform, that is shown once you are signed in. Every sub-contract in the chain thins your rate, and a real company emails from its own domain, not a free gmail account.
Get payment terms in writing. Beware companies that fold owing money and reappear under a new name.
Some detail is held back for confidentiality, and that is fine. But you should always get the fundamentals: dates, location, rate, payment terms, task, skills, certificates, hours and what is covered.
WhatsApp groups are useful for finding work, but the same rules apply. You can judge a company by how it writes its messages.
Never pay a company to get work, like registration fees or a compulsory course only they accept. Your own licence, kit and commute to a known location are just part of the job.
Check the SIA register and the Approved Contractor Scheme, ask around, and hold your minimum rate.
