What Is My Security Business Worth?

It is one of the first questions every security business owner asks when they start thinking about an exit. It is a fair question, and most owners want a sense of the number before they commit to anything. The honest answer is that your business is worth what a vetted buyer will actually pay for it, and that figure is shaped by factors specific to your operation, above all your revenue mix.

What I can share here is the framework we use to think about valuation, and the variables that tend to move the number up or down for UK security businesses in the current market. Security is not one market but several, and that distinction matters more here than in almost any other sector.

Manned Guarding and Electronic Systems Are Valued Differently

A manned guarding business and an electronic security systems business can have similar turnover and sell for very different multiples. Guarding is labour-intensive, with wages making up the large majority of cost, and margins are thin. Electronic security, alarms, CCTV, and access control, carries higher margins and, crucially, recurring maintenance and monitoring income. Buyers price that difference openly.

For manned guarding and security guarding businesses, the ranges seen across the market run from roughly 3x to 8x EBITDA, with most well-run operations closer to 3.5x to 6.5x (DealFlowAgent, 2026). Electronic and alarm businesses tend to achieve more: integrated electronic security firms commonly transact at 6x to 10x EBITDA, and scaled, recurring-revenue platforms higher still (DealFlowAgent, 2026). Where your business sits depends on what it does, how predictable its income is, and how dependent it is on you.

The Starting Point: Adjusted EBITDA

Most security businesses are valued on a multiple of adjusted EBITDA, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation. The "adjusted" part matters. We strip out non-recurring costs, any personal expenses running through the business, and one-off items that would not repeat under new ownership, so the buyer sees the true, ongoing earning power.

For smaller, owner-managed businesses below £1m of EBITDA, there is genuinely no security-specific multiple published, and any figure at that size should be treated as a proxy rather than a rule. The broad guide for owner-managed businesses of that size sits at roughly 3x to 5x EBITDA, and labour-heavy guarding tends towards the lower end of even that proxy because of thin margins and owner dependency.

What Pushes the Multiple Up

Recurring monitoring revenue is the single biggest value driver in electronic security. A book of monitored or alarm receiving centre accounts produces contracted, predictable income that arrives without new selling, and buyers pay a premium for it. Monitoring and managed-service income is often valued on a multiple of recurring monthly revenue, in the region of 30x to 45x RMR depending on customer attrition and margin (DealFlowAgent, 2026).

Accreditation is the second big lever. SIA Approved Contractor Scheme status, NSI Gold (or the legacy NACOSS Gold) and SSAIB certification, BS 7858 staff vetting, and operation to the relevant EN standards, EN 50131 for intruder alarms, EN 50132 for CCTV, EN 50136 for alarm transmission, and EN 50518 for monitoring centres, all signal a lower-risk, tender-eligible business. Buyers typically discount an unaccredited operator to cover the cost and time of re-certification.

Contract quality matters too. Long-term commercial contracts beat one-off installs. A diverse client base across retail, corporate, and public sector, with no single customer dominating, reduces the buyer's risk. Clean, TUPE-transferable contracts in a guarding business, and a trained, licensed, retained workforce that does not depend on the owner, all support a stronger number.

What Can Reduce the Multiple

Owner dependency is the most common detractor. If you hold the key client relationships, set the pricing, and run operations single-handedly, a buyer will apply a discount. It is not a judgement on what you have built; it is a calculation about whether the earnings continue once you step away.

Buyers also check how a monitored book signals. Legacy alarms still running over the old analogue telephone network will need migrating to IP before the PSTN switch-off on 31 January 2027, and a buyer will factor that work in. High customer attrition on monitoring contracts, heavy reliance on a single large contract, or unaccredited work all pull the number down.

An Unusually Active Buyer Market

For owners, the timing is notable. Private equity is consolidating the sector hard: in 2025, 70% of UK fire and security deals involved private-equity-backed buyers, up from 57% the year before (Grant Thornton, 2025). Buy-and-build platforms are actively acquiring owner-managed businesses, particularly below £1m of EBITDA, which is exactly the pool many of our buyers are asking about. Demand for well-run security businesses is genuinely strong at present.

What This Means in Practice

For a well-run security business with recurring monitoring income, current accreditation, and a management structure that does not depend entirely on the owner, the market is favourable. For a business earlier in its development, a valuation conversation is still worth having, because we can advise on what would make the most material difference to your outcome over the next year or two.

The only way to get a number that reflects your specific business rather than a generic formula is to have the conversation. It takes around thirty minutes and is free, and the buyer pays our fee, not you.