Manned Guarding vs Electronic Systems: How Each Is Valued

Two security businesses with the same turnover can sell for markedly different sums. The reason almost always comes down to which side of the industry they sit on. Manned guarding and electronic security systems are different businesses with different economics, and buyers value them on different bases. Understanding where your business sits is the starting point for any realistic valuation.

Two Very Different Markets

The UK private security guarding market, static and mobile guarding, patrol, keyholding and alarm response, is worth around £9bn a year and is served by roughly 6,460 businesses (IBISWorld, 2025). The electronic security systems market, the installation, monitoring and maintenance of alarms, CCTV and access control, is a separate market worth around £2.1bn (IBISWorld, 2026). They overlap in places, but the money behaves very differently in each.

The regulated workforce shows where the labour sits. Of more than 500,000 active SIA licences, the largest categories are door supervisor, public space CCTV surveillance and contract security guarding (GOV.UK; Professional Security Magazine, 2025). The sector is weighted heavily towards people on the ground rather than electronic systems, which is exactly why the two halves are valued so differently.

How Manned Guarding Is Valued

Guarding is labour-intensive. Wages typically account for the large majority of cost, and the National Living Wage sets a floor that squeezes already thin margins. Because earnings are labour-dependent and contract-based, multiples sit at the lower end of the security sector: across the market, guarding businesses transact at roughly 3x to 8x EBITDA, with most well-run operations closer to 3.5x to 6.5x (DealFlowAgent, 2026).

What lifts a guarding business within that range is the quality of its contracts and its independence from the owner. Sticky, long-term contracts with low churn, a diverse client base, clean TUPE-transferable arrangements, SIA Approved Contractor status, BS 7858 vetting, and a trained, retained, licensed workforce that runs without the owner all support a stronger number. Guarding is sometimes valued on an adjusted-EBITDA or revenue basis where margins are very thin, and contract stickiness is the variable buyers scrutinise most.

How Electronic Systems Are Valued

Electronic security carries higher margins, and, critically, recurring income from maintenance, service and monitoring contracts. That recurring element is what buyers pay up for. Integrated electronic security businesses commonly transact at 6x to 10x EBITDA, with scaled, recurring-revenue platforms higher still, while smaller owner-managed alarm firms sit lower (DealFlowAgent, 2026). By revenue tier, systems businesses turning over £1m to £3m have typically achieved around 3.5x to 4.5x EBITDA, £3m to £10m businesses 5x to 6.5x, and larger ones more (DealFlowAgent, 2026).

A worked, verifiable example illustrates the point. In May 2023 Mitie acquired R H Irving, an electronic security systems business, for £19.1m against roughly £2.4m of EBITDA, a multiple of about 7.95x (Business Sale Report, 2023). The recurring, systems-led model is precisely the sort of business that attracts a multiple at that level.

The Recurring Revenue Dividing Line

The clearest dividing line between the two models is recurring revenue. Monitoring and alarm receiving centre books are often valued not on EBITDA at all but on a multiple of recurring monthly revenue, in the region of 30x to 45x RMR depending on attrition and margin (DealFlowAgent, 2026). Contracted, predictable monitoring income is the single biggest value driver in the sector, and it is what separates a premium electronic security business from a lower-multiple guarding operation.

What If You Do Both?

Many businesses combine guarding with systems, or sell systems alongside a monitored book. For those businesses, buyers tend to value the components on their own merits rather than applying a single blended multiple: the recurring monitoring income on an RMR basis, the systems install and maintenance on a systems multiple, and the guarding on a guarding multiple. Presenting the business so each revenue stream is visible, rather than merged into one figure, usually helps the seller, because it lets the higher-value recurring elements be priced properly.

There is also an active buyer market behind all of this. Private equity is consolidating the sector, with 70% of UK fire and security deals in 2025 backed by private equity, up from 57% the year before (Grant Thornton, 2025). Different buyers want different things: some are building guarding scale, others are buying recurring monitoring books. Part of our role is matching your particular business to the 8 to 10 vetted buyers most likely to value it highly.

Working Out Where You Sit

If your revenue is mostly people on the ground, the conversation is about contract quality, retention and accreditation. If it is mostly systems and monitoring, it is about recurring revenue and margin. Most businesses are somewhere in between, and the mix is what determines the number. A short, confidential conversation is the quickest way to understand how a buyer would value your particular blend. The buyer pays our fee, not you.