Everyone in the private security industry can see it. Everyone knows it is happening. Far too many people simply choose to look the other way.

A security contract is won at a rate that should allow for properly trained, properly licensed and properly paid officers. On paper, the contract looks professional. The client believes they have purchased a compliant security service. The contractor talks about standards, quality, audits, accreditations and regulation.

Then the work is passed down because those that won the tender simply can not fulfil their promise.

Company A wins the contract for £20.50 per hour. It is subcontracted to Company B for £18.50. Company C then comes in and takes its slice and passes it on for £16.50.

By now, most reasonable people would assume this is where it stops. It does not.

Now the officer is being offered minimum wage of £12.71 per hour. Then the WhatsApp and Facebook groups offer cash in hand at £11.00, then £10.00 and in some cases, even less.

Somehow, a security officer ends up working 12-hours for a rate that bears no resemblance to the value of the original contract.

This is not professional security. This is a race to the bottom.

The security industry was told that regulation would transform private security. We were told that licensing would drive up standards. We were told that wages would improve. We were told that security would become a recognised profession.

The reality for many frontline officers is very different.

Many are still expected to pay for their own licence, fund their own training, work long and unsociable hours, absorb the risks of violence and abuse, and then accept poverty-level pay because every company above them in the chain has taken a cut before the shift ever reaches them.

ACS, BS standards, SIA regulation, audits and accreditations all have their place. They matter. Standards matter. Licensing matters. Compliance matters. But none of it is enough if the commercial model itself rewards those who can strip money out of contracts while pushing risk down onto the worker.

The Approved Contractor Scheme is often presented as a mark of quality and integrity. Yet frontline officers are entitled to ask a very simple question: if the system is working, why are so many security workers still underpaid, misclassified, overworked and passed around through subcontracting chains?

A company can have policies. It can have certificates. It can have accreditations. It can pass audits. But none of that means much to the officer standing alone on a 12-hour night shift who does not know who is truly responsible for their pay, their welfare, their safety, PPE or their employment rights.

The biggest scandal in the security industry is not only low pay. It is the disappearance of accountability.

By the time the officer arrives on site, the original contractor may not even know who they are. The client may believe they have bought a regulated service. The main contractor may believe the subcontractor has everything under control. The subcontractor may have passed the shift to someone else. The worker may then be told they are self-employed and should simply get on with it.

When something goes wrong, everyone points somewhere else.

The client blames the contractor. The contractor blames the subcontractor. The subcontractor blames the labour supplier. The labour supplier blames the officer.

This is how exploitation survives. It survives in the gaps between responsibility, contract value and enforcement.

Security officers are not decorative uniforms. They protect people, property, infrastructure, transport hubs, hospitals, retail sites, construction sites, public spaces and major events. They are expected to manage conflict, respond to emergencies, identify risk, support public safety and deal with members of the public in some of the most challenging environments in the country.

That work deserves professional respect. It also deserves professional pay.

You cannot build a professional industry on poverty wages. You cannot demand high standards from workers while allowing clients and contractors to drive down contract values until lawful employment becomes commercially inconvenient. You cannot claim to value public safety while tolerating labour models that make exploitation predictable.

The SIF’s position is clear. The current system is not working for frontline security workers.

The industry cannot continue with a model where those at the top of the contract chain speak about quality and compliance, while those at the bottom are left with insecure work, poor pay and no meaningful voice.

There must be urgent reform.

The Security Industry Authority needs to take urgent ownership and do what they were instructed to do. Regulate.

Their record is not good enough. Their salary goes up whilst workers stay at minimum wage. The Government needs to invest in stronger powers and SIA staff that are out on the ground talking to frontline officers, enforcing breaches and scrutinising employers who are deliberately and openly doing their best to put profit over public protection.

Abusive subcontracting chains must be challenged. False self-employment, underpayment and labour exploitation must be properly enforced. Clients must be held accountable where procurement decisions create unsafe or exploitative working conditions.

Most importantly, frontline workers and trade unions must have a real voice in shaping the future of the industry. The people who stand the posts, work the nights, deal with the risks and carry the responsibility understand the failures of this industry better than anyone.

Successive governments, ministers, regulators and industry leaders have spoken for years about professionalising security. Frontline officers have heard the speeches. They have seen the glossy strategies. They have paid the licence fees. They have completed the training. They have worn the uniform. They have stood the night shifts. They have taken the abuse.

What they have not seen is an industry that consistently values them.

Everyone can see the problem. Everyone knows it is happening. The only real question is whether those with power are finally prepared to act.

At some point, the current system has to be ripped up and rebuilt around the people who actually deliver security.

For the SIF, that point is now.