Emergency and protective services careers: fire, security and Border Force

This guide covers the widest spread of any on the site. At one end, a security licence you can hold within weeks of turning 18 and start earning on immediately. At the other, wholetime firefighter — a job so oversubscribed that some services get thousands of applications for a couple of dozen places. Same sector, completely different odds, and knowing which is which saves you a year.

Covers fire and rescue services, SIA-licensed security and Border Force across the UK. Firefighter pay is set nationally by the NJC; security pay is market-set; Border Force is Civil Service. All are reviewed at least annually.

Start here

• Firefighter, security and Border ForceWhat these jobs pay
• On-call, wholetime, SIA licence, Civil ServiceEvery route in
• The one sector with a same-week routeJoining with no experience
• Fire tests, SIA, Civil Service Success ProfilesAssessment and interview
• The station, the door, the borderA day in the life
• Licences, vetting and formsYour application
• The two-year plan, and the one thing you can do nowIf you are 16 or 17

Three different bars in one sector

Security is the accessible one. An SIA licence requires you to be 18, complete a short training course and pass an identity and criminality check. It is days of training rather than years, and door supervision pays above minimum wage for unsocial hours. It is the fastest legitimate route from nothing to a licensed trade anywhere on this site.

Border Force is a Civil Service job. Applications run through the Civil Service process with Success Profiles, and it is competitive but structured — no fitness test, no degree requirement, a published framework you can prepare against.

Wholetime firefighter is the hardest job to get in this guide. Not because the standards are impossible, but because the ratio is brutal and recruitment windows open rarely. Anyone serious should read every route in for the on-call route, which is how a great many wholetime firefighters actually got there.

The roles these guides cover

Seven roles on this board sit across fire, security and the border:

• Job roleFirefighter
• Job roleSecurity officer
• Job roleSecurity manager
• Job roleBodyguard
• Job roleBorder Force officer
• Job roleImmigration officer
• Job roleAssistant immigration officer

What they have in common

Every one of them is 18 minimum. Every one involves shifts, including nights. Every one puts you in front of people who do not want you there — and how you handle that, rather than how strong or clever you are, is what all three selection processes are really measuring.

And every one of them will check your background properly. An SIA licence involves a criminality check, Border Force requires Civil Service vetting, and fire services run their own. The honest advice is the same as for policing: declare everything, early.

If you want to be earning soon, start with every route in and look at the SIA licence. If firefighter is the goal, read the same page for the on-call route, then what the tests involve. Not 18 yet? The two-year plan has one thing you can start this month. Or browse 737 job roles explained.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0