What Is My Security Business Worth?

If you own a security business and have started thinking about selling, the first question on your mind is almost certainly: what is it actually worth?

The honest answer is that it depends on what kind of security business you run. Security is not a single market. A labour-led manned guarding operation, an electronic systems installer, and an alarm receiving centre with a book of monitored accounts are valued on completely different bases. The good news for owners in 2026 is that buyer demand is strong, with private equity, the investment firms that buy companies to grow and sell on, consolidating the sector and an active buyer network built over many years.

How Security Businesses Are Valued

Most security businesses are valued at a number of years of adjusted profit, measured as EBITDA (profit before interest, tax, and the write-down of equipment, vehicles and other assets) or as Seller's Discretionary Earnings. This takes your reported profit, adds back owner benefits, one-off expenses, and non-recurring costs, then multiplies it by a set number, the multiple. The critical point in security is that the multiple swings dramatically depending on your revenue mix.

Where you sit within the range is determined less by your turnover and more by how predictable your income is. A pound of contracted, recurring monitoring revenue is worth considerably more to a buyer than a pound of one-off guarding wages billed on. Understanding which part of the sector you sit in is the starting point for any realistic valuation.

Why Your Sub-Sector Sets the Range

Manned Guarding

Static and mobile patrol, keyholding and alarm response, retail and corporate guarding. This is the labour-heavy end of security, where wages are typically the great majority of cost and National Living Wage rises squeeze already thin margins. Manned guarding businesses are valued on contract stickiness, contracts whose officers would move across under TUPE on their existing terms, and client diversity rather than on capital assets. Published practitioner guidance gives no range for manned guarding.

Source: Sell Your Security Business 2026 Guide, April 2026.

Electronic Security Systems

Intruder alarms, CCTV and video surveillance, access control, and integrated or fire-linked systems, covering both installation and maintenance. Margins here are higher than in guarding, and maintenance and service contracts add recurring value. Small owner-managed alarm monitoring firms typically achieve 3x to 5x EBITDA, integrated electronic security businesses 6x to 10x, and scaled platforms with high recurring revenue 10x to 15x or more. A worked example: Mitie acquired R H Irving, a security services provider whose work includes electronic security systems, for £19.1m against around £2.4m EBITDA, a multiple of close to 8x, in May 2023.

Source: Sell Your Security Business 2026 Guide, April 2026; Business Sale Report, May 2023.

Monitoring and Alarm Receiving Centres (ARCs)

Recurring monitoring revenue is the prize in security. A book of monitored or ARC-connected accounts is frequently valued on a multiple of Recurring Monthly Revenue (RMR) rather than EBITDA, because that income is contracted and predictable and arrives without new selling.

What Pushes Your Valuation Higher

Recurring Monitoring Revenue

This is the single most important factor in electronic security valuations. A business with a substantial book of monitored accounts, low customer attrition, and healthy gross margin attracts the highest multiples in the sector. Buyers pay for income they can rely on from day one, and a monitoring book transfers that certainty to them.

Accreditation: SIA ACS, NSI Gold and SSAIB

Buyers price accreditation heavily because it underpins tender eligibility, insurance, and self-certification. The marks that matter are SIA Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) status, NSI Gold (the legacy NACOSS Gold) approval, and SSAIB certification, alongside BS 7858-compliant staff vetting and operation to the EN 50131 (intruder alarms), EN 50132 (CCTV), EN 50136 (alarm transmission), and EN 50518 (monitoring centres) standards. A business holding current ACS plus NSI Gold or SSAIB is a cleaner, lower-risk acquisition, and unaccredited operators typically attract a discount to cover re-certification and the gap in contract eligibility.

A security business holding current accreditation and a book of recurring monitoring revenue is a fundamentally different proposition to a labour-led guarding operation reliant on a handful of low-margin static contracts.

Long-Term Contracts and Client Diversity

Long-term commercial contracts are worth more than a pipeline of one-off installs, and a diverse client base across retail, corporate, and public sector reduces concentration risk. If no single client represents a large share of your revenue, your business is considered well-diversified, and buyers will pay for that resilience. Clean, TUPE-transferable contracts make the deal simpler and protect the value through completion.

A Trained, Licensed, Retained Workforce

Qualified, SIA-licensed and BS 7858-vetted staff who are likely to stay post-acquisition reduce owner dependence, the business leaning on you, and de-risk the deal. There were more than 500,000 active SIA licences in issue in the UK in early 2025, held by around 446,000 individuals, evidence of a large regulated workforce, but it is retention and compliant licensing within your own business that a buyer actually pays for.

Source: GOV.UK, SIA Licence Holders statistical data set, 2025.

What Can Reduce Your Valuation

• Owner-dependence. If the business relies on you personally for client relationships, contract management, or day-to-day running, buyers see transition risk. The more it operates without you, the higher it values
• Thin, labour-led margins. Heavy reliance on a few low-margin static guarding contracts, with little recurring or monitoring income, will sit at the lower end of the range
• Accounts still on the PSTN. Monitored alarms still signalling over copper telephone lines face the January 2027 PSTN switch-off. Accounts not yet migrated to IP or dual-path signalling are a re-signalling liability that buyers will price in
• Lapsed accreditation or vetting gaps. Out-of-date ACS, NSI or SSAIB status, or incomplete BS 7858 screening records, concern buyers and can stall a deal
• Client concentration and non-transferable contracts. A few large contracts that will not novate or TUPE cleanly increase the buyer's risk and reduce the price

The Buyer Landscape in 2026

Private equity is consolidating UK security aggressively. In 2025, 70 per cent of UK fire and security transactions involved private-equity-backed corporates, up from 57 per cent in 2024, against 46.2 per cent across the wider facilities services market. Buy-and-build platforms, groups growing by adding smaller firms to one larger business, are consolidating owner-managed businesses.

Source: Grant Thornton, UK Fire and Security Sector M&A Review 2025.

Named consolidators, investor-backed groups buying up firms in the trade, active in the market include New Path Fire & Security (Duke Capital backed, with 14 acquisitions to date) and ABCA Systems (recapitalised with Trimountain Partners in 2025). Alongside them, trade buyers (security businesses buying to grow) and experienced individual acquirers are competing for quality businesses. When multiple qualified buyers want your business, the price naturally moves upward.

A Note on Smaller Businesses

For a smaller firm, any published range is a rough guide. Recurring revenue and current accreditation are what lift a smaller business within it.

How to Find Out What Your Business Is Worth

The only way to get an accurate valuation is to have your business assessed by someone who understands the security sector specifically. A generalist broker will apply a single blanket multiple and miss the value embedded in your monitoring book, your NSI Gold status, your BS 7858 vetting, and the TUPE-stable contracts that underpin your earnings.

A sector-aware adviser understands why a book of monitored accounts is valued on RMR rather than profit, why current ACS and NSI accreditation widens your buyer pool, and how the PSTN migration affects due diligence, the buyer's detailed check of your business. They also understand that a single offer is convenient uncertainty: real certainty comes from a confidential, competitive process with several pre-vetted buyers.

One timing point worth noting: the tax rate under Business Asset Disposal Relief, the relief for owners selling a business they work in, went up from 14 per cent to 18 per cent in April 2026, with the lifetime limit unchanged at £1m of qualifying gains. The maximum saving on a £1m gain has fallen to £60,000, which sharpens the decision for owners already weighing a sale.

Source: GOV.UK, Business Asset Disposal Relief.

Nick Hunt leads the work on raising what a business is worth before a sale, from margin to owner dependence.