the talent you


already employ


ome of the people who could lead our industry tomorrow are already working on our sites today. The challenge is making sure we notice them, support them and give them a clear way forward.


S Look closer to home


Every security firm I know is trying to recruit its way to a stronger workforce. Job boards, recruitment fairs, referral schemes, all this activity gets aimed outward at the people who do not yet work within our industry. Meanwhile, the person who could run a control room in two years' time is probably already on the roster, working nights, but nobody has told them how they could move forward.


That is the real career problem in security. We have plenty of ability across our teams. What we do not always have is a way for people to see where they could go, or the encouragement to start walking down that path. Visibility, more than anything else, decides who progresses and who starts to look elsewhere.


I lead people and culture at Bidvest Noonan, where 157 nationalities work across our sites in the UK and Ireland. That range of background and experience is one of our biggest assets. It is also easy to overlook, because a uniform and a job title can obscure the full picture of what someone can actually do. If we want to develop security careers, our first job is to look harder at the talent we already employ.


The missing ladder


People rarely leave a security job because the work itself has changed. They leave


because they cannot see a future in it. When there is no obvious next step, no named role to aim for and no one to ask about it, even good officers assume the ceiling is low and start looking elsewhere.


A career ladder only works if people can see the next rung. That sounds obvious, yet plenty of employers keep progression informal, letting promotions happen informally and then wondering why capable people start to leave. Making the career ladder visible costs very little. It mostly takes intent.


In practice, a visible pathway includes:


• Clearly mapped roles, so an officer can see the route from front line to supervisor, site lead, operations and area management


• A named next step for each person, discussed openly rather than assumed


• Someone to ask, a manager who invites the conversation instead of waiting for it


• Vacancies shared internally first, so people know the opportunities are real


None of that demands a big budget. It needs a decision to treat progression as everyone's business, rather than a reward handed out to the few who happen to get noticed.


More than a title Once you start really looking for it, the 11 © CITY SECURITY MAGAZINE – AUTUMN 2026


talent is everywhere. A while ago, one of our security officers at a Dublin shopping centre moved into our employee relations team. She holds a degree in employment law, earned in Brazil years before she ever pulled on a uniform. She had the courage to put her hand up, and our job was to make sure the opportunity became real. She now helps look after colleagues across the business, using expertise that had been sitting unused on a shift rota.


Her story is relatively common in security, even if we rarely talk about it. Across the security industry, we often recruit people who carry far more experience than their job title suggests. There are people working night shifts holding qualifications from other countries that go unrecognised here. We have trained teachers, nurses, engineers and lawyers standing at reception desks and patrolling car parks, their experience invisible. With 157 nationalities in our own workforce, that pool of hidden capability is huge.


The lesson is simple. Experience often outstrips a job title, and the only way to find out is to ask. A short conversation about someone's background can reveal skills that change what you offer them next.


Why people stay quiet


For a lot of officers, the barrier is not ability. It is confidence, and often language. Someone whose first language is not English may hesitate to apply for a supervisor role, worried their spoken English will let them down in an interview, even when they run a site calmly every


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Recognising


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