The leading close protection companies serving UK-based organisations in 2026 include Sicuro Group, Control Risks, G4S (part of Allied Universal), Crisis24 (part of GardaWorld), Pinkerton (part of Securitas) and Prosegur. All six are established international firms with the scale, insurance and governance that corporate procurement teams look for, and each approaches close protection from a different heritage: operator-led delivery, risk consulting, guarding, intelligence, or integrated global security. This guide compares them, explains how close protection is regulated in the UK, and sets out the questions worth asking any provider before you sign.
A note on transparency: Sicuro Group appears in this list, so we are not a neutral observer. Every profile below is factual, the order is not a ranking, and the selection criteria in the second half of this guide apply to every provider named, ourselves included.
What is a close protection company?
A close protection company provides trained, licensed officers who protect a specific person or small group rather than a building or an asset. The work, colloquially called bodyguarding, is in practice mostly planning: threat and risk assessment, route and venue reconnaissance, secure transport, coordination with residences, offices and event hosts, and the quiet management of a principal’s exposure so that nothing eventful happens at all. Close protection security companies typically deliver this alongside related services such as residential security teams, secure ground transport and protective surveillance.
In the UK the term has a precise legal meaning. Close protection is one of the licensable activities defined under the Private Security Industry Act 2001, which means every individual operative must hold a close protection licence from the Security Industry Authority, the industry regulator. That legal foundation shapes the whole market, and it is where any serious comparison of providers has to start.
The leading close protection companies in the UK
- Sicuro Group. Founded in 2005 by a former Royal Marine and headquartered in Dubai with a presence in London, Sicuro Group delivers close protection in the UK and across more than 140 countries through delivery partners its own core team physically vets, a practice maintained for two decades. Every engagement runs under one contract and one accountable point of contact, coordinated from a 24/7 Global Security Operations Centre that has operated continuously since 2010, with ISO 9001, ISO 22301 and ISO 27001 certification behind the management system. The style is deliberately low profile: protection designed to read as hospitality rather than security.
- Best for: organisations and families whose requirement runs from London into complex markets and who want a single accountable provider at both ends.
- Control Risks. A London-headquartered specialist risk consultancy with five decades of history, Control Risks approaches protection from an intelligence and advisory background. Its operational and protective security work sits inside a broader offering that spans geopolitical analysis, crisis management and board-level risk consulting, so protection programmes are often designed as part of a wider enterprise security strategy rather than bought as a standalone detail.
- Best for: organisations that want close protection integrated with strategic risk advisory and intelligence.
- G4S (Allied Universal). London-headquartered G4S has been part of Allied Universal since 2021, and together they form one of the largest security employers in the world. The G4S Risk Management arm delivers specialist protective services across an international network of more than 90 countries, drawing on a deep UK heritage in guarding, events and government work.
- Best for: large organisations with multi-site requirements that want close protection alongside guarding, technology and facilities security under one very large umbrella.
- Crisis24 (GardaWorld). Crisis24 is the risk services brand of Montreal-based GardaWorld and carries genuine British roots, having absorbed established UK risk and protection businesses as it grew. It pairs protective operations with Global Operations Centres, protective intelligence and a technology platform covering travel risk, mass notification and medical assistance.
- Best for: multinationals that want a technology-led programme where close protection connects to travel risk management and intelligence feeds.
- Pinkerton (Securitas). With more than 170 years of history, Pinkerton is one of the oldest names in private security and is today the specialist risk arm of Securitas, one of the world’s largest security groups. Its UK team provides protection grounded in investigations, protective intelligence and corporate risk work.
- Best for: corporate clients who want protection with investigative and intelligence depth behind it, backed by a global guarding giant.
- Prosegur. Madrid-headquartered Prosegur is one of the world’s largest security companies by headcount, operating across Europe, Latin America and beyond, with services spanning guarding, cash logistics, technology and protection. Its scale and geographic spread make it a familiar name to procurement teams running pan-regional security tenders.
- Best for: organisations with substantial European or Latin American footprints that want one global brand across markets.
How are British close protection companies regulated?
This is the section most buyer guides get wrong, and getting it right will save you from the most common licensing claims that do not survive contact with the register.
Companies are not licensed. People are.
The Security Industry Authority licenses individual operatives, not firms. A close protection operative must complete the licence-linked qualification, a Level 3 award (A-level equivalent, and a full tier above the Level 2 required for security guarding or door supervision), built on roughly 140 hours of training covering threat assessment, journey management, law and reconnaissance. Any firm telling you it “holds an SIA licence” as a company is describing something that does not exist.
Company-level approval is voluntary and specific.
What companies can hold is SIA Approved Contractor Scheme status, a voluntary quality mark granted per licensable activity and independently assessed. Approval for security guarding says nothing about close protection: at the time of writing, only around two dozen companies in the whole UK hold approval covering close protection specifically. The register is public and searchable. Check the activity, not just the logo.
Sub-contracting has rules.
SIA approved contractors must, with narrow exceptions, sub-contract only to other approved contractors. Since much of the industry delivers surge capacity and regional coverage through sub-contracting, asking who will actually stand next to your principal, under whose vetting and whose insurance, is not pedantry. It is the whole question.
Standards exist; use them.
BS 8507 is the British Standard code of practice for close protection services, and BS 7858 governs the security screening of personnel. Neither is legally required, which is exactly why asking a provider whether they work to them, and who verified it, separates the substantive from the theatrical.
We publish this level of detail for a simple reason: precision about what licensing and standards actually mean is the fastest available test of whether a provider understands its own regulatory environment. Vague answers here predict vague answers under pressure.
Close protection companies in London: what should you expect?
London concentrates the UK market. Most international firms base their British protection operations in the capital, and demand clusters around a recognisable set of scenarios: visiting executives and delegations, high-net-worth families in residence, litigation and contentious corporate events, fashion and awards seasons, and principals whose public profile has recently changed.
Three things distinguish good close protection companies in London from the rest. First, low-profile methodology: the city rewards protection that reads as staff, not security, and a visibly heavy detail in Mayfair or the City often increases attention rather than reducing it. Second, genuine familiarity with the city’s venues, private clubs, courts and event spaces, because access arrangements and host relationships do more for a principal’s day than any amount of muscle. Third, honest team design: a competent close protection company in London will sometimes recommend a single experienced officer with a security-trained driver over a larger team, because the threat assessment supports it. If every proposal you receive scales up regardless of the assessment, you are being sold to, not protected.
For international visitors, the regulatory point above cuts the other way: an arrangement that is normal at home, an armed detail most obviously, does not transfer to the UK, where close protection is delivered unarmed within a specific legal framework. A provider who explains that upfront is demonstrating exactly the judgement you are paying for.
How should you choose between close protection companies?
Scale answers some questions and not others. Whatever the size of the provider, the selection criteria worth applying are the same.
Verify, do not accept
Check individual licences and any Approved Contractor status on the SIA’s public registers, ask for the firm’s BS 8507 position, and confirm professional indemnity and public liability cover in writing.
Interrogate the delivery chain
Ask what proportion of the team will be direct employees, who the sub-contractors are, who vetted them, to what standard, and when someone from the firm last verified them in person rather than on paper.
Our own rule at Sicuro is that no partner delivers for a client until our core team has inspected them first-hand, a practice we have maintained for two decades, and we consider the equivalent question fair game for any provider, including us.
Demand one chain of accountability
A protection programme that involves a consultancy for the assessment, an agency for the officers and a third firm for vehicles has three places for an incident to fall between.
One contract, one accountable point of contact, and pre-agreed escalation is the structure that holds when something happens at 2 AM.
Judge the assessment, not the brochure
The deliverable that predicts quality is the threat and risk assessment: specific to your principal, your patterns and your locations, with recommendations that scale down as readily as up.
Generic assessments produce generic protection.
Expect commercial transparency
You should see how the price is constructed: team composition, hours, vehicles, advance work and expenses, stated plainly, with no ambiguity about what triggers additional cost.
Providers confident in their value do not need opacity.
What if your requirement does not stop at the UK border?
For many organisations, the harder question is not who protects the principal in London but who protects the same principal in Lagos, Riyadh or Bogotá the following week.
UK licensing stops at the border; what travels is the provider’s management system, vetting discipline and accountability structure.
The large firms above all operate internationally, each in their own model. Ours was built for precisely this scenario: the standard your board signed off in London, delivered identically where risk concentrates, under the single contract and single point of contact described above.
You can read how that works in practice on our close protection and secure transportation pages, or in our companion guide to the top executive protection companies operating globally.
Frequently Asked Questions
The terms overlap heavily. Close protection is the British and regulatory term for licensed personal protection; [executive protection](https://www.sicurogroup.com/solutions/executive-protection/) is the more common international term and usually implies the corporate context: secure travel, journey management and protective intelligence around business activity. In the UK, both are delivered by SIA-licensed close protection operatives.
Pricing is built from team composition, officer experience, hours of cover, vehicles, advance reconnaissance and expenses, usually charged as day rates per officer or as a fixed programme for defined cover. Treat any quote issued before a threat and risk assessment with caution, since the assessment is what determines the team, and the team is what determines the cost.
Yes. Anyone providing close protection under contract in the UK must hold an individual SIA close protection licence, backed by the Level 3 licence-linked qualification. There are no exemptions for experience gained overseas or in the military; the licence is the legal entry point.
No. UK close protection is delivered unarmed. Professional providers manage risk through planning, intelligence, secure transport and coordination with police where the threat level warrants it.
Three structural things. Our delivery partners across more than 140 countries are vetted in person by our own core team rather than on paper, a practice we have maintained for two decades. Every engagement runs under one contract with one accountable point of contact and 24/7 oversight, in the UK and beyond it. And we hold no ties to insurers, so our assessments and recommendations serve the client alone. Where a requirement is genuinely better served by one of the larger firms above, we say so.
If you are comparing close protection companies UK-wide, the fastest way to make the shortlist meaningful is to start from a proper threat and risk assessment rather than a brochure.
Request a consultation through our UK close protection page and we will give you an honest read on what your situation requires, what it does not, and, where a larger firm on the list above is genuinely the better fit for your requirement, we will say so.