Can you get into security with no experience?

Yes. An SIA licence needs you to be 18, a short approved course lasting days and an identity and criminality check. No qualifications or prior experience are required.

How do you get experience for the fire service?

Any public-facing or physically demanding job builds the evidence — security, retail, hospitality, warehouse, care or lifeguarding. Write down specific incidents as they happen, and train against the published fitness standard while you are earning.

What is the biggest mistake people make applying to the fire service?

Waiting for a wholetime recruitment window instead of spending that time licensed, employed and building evidence — and not applying for the on-call route in the meantime.

Getting into fire, security or Border Force with no experience

Emergency & Protective Services guides - FIRSTJOBZ

Most guides on this site have to talk around the experience problem. This one does not, because security has an actual answer: a licence, a short course and you are working. That matters beyond the job itself, because six months on a door produces exactly the evidence that fire and Border Force interviews ask for and cannot be faked.

SIA licensing applies UK-wide from age 18. Fire and Border Force selection are described in general terms because both vary by service and are periodically revised.

The sequence that works

If you are 18 with nothing on your CV, this is the order that gets you furthest fastest.

1. Get licensed and start earning. The SIA course takes days. You are then working, paid above minimum wage, and you have an actual trade rather than an aspiration.

2. Collect the evidence deliberately. Every shift on a door generates the material fire and Border Force ask about: a confrontation you defused, a decision under pressure, a time you followed a procedure when it would have been easier not to. Write them down the same week — you will not remember the detail in eight months, and the detail is what scores.

3. Get fit while you are earning. Fire has a physical standard. Twelve months of security work plus consistent training means you arrive at a recruitment window ready rather than starting from scratch when it opens.

4. Apply to everything you qualify for. On-call fire if you live near a station, Border Force whenever a campaign runs, wholetime when a window opens. You lose nothing by applying while employed.

What each one wants instead of experience

Fire wants physical capability, calm under pressure and the ability to work in a team where instructions are followed first and discussed later. It also increasingly wants evidence of community awareness, because a large share of the modern job is prevention work rather than incidents.

Security wants you licensed, reliable and able to stay calm with someone who has had eight pints. Employers care about turning up on time far more than any qualification.

Border Force wants examples against the Civil Service Success Profiles framework — published behaviours you can read in advance and write examples against. It is the most preparable process in this guide and the one where reading the documentation genuinely wins.

Jobs that build toward these

If security is not available or not for you, the same evidence comes from anywhere public-facing and slightly difficult.

Retail and hospitality for conflict and pace. Warehouse and logistics for procedure, shifts and physical work. Care and support work for handling people in distress. Lifeguarding for responsibility, first aid and a rescue mindset. Our retail, hospitality and warehouse guides all lead somewhere from here.

First aid training is the cheapest credible addition to any of these applications and it takes a weekend.

What actually blocks people

The criminality check. An SIA licence involves one, Border Force requires Civil Service vetting and fire services run their own. Convictions are assessed rather than automatically fatal, but they must be declared.

Fitness, for fire only. Published and specific. Failing it is avoidable with months of preparation and unavoidable without.

Waiting for the perfect opening. The most common mistake in this sector. Wholetime fire windows are rare, so people wait a year doing nothing instead of spending that year licensed, paid and building evidence.

Applying to Border Force without reading the framework. The behaviours are published. Applications that ignore them fail against applications that do not, regardless of who would be better at the job.

So: no experience needed, and one sector where you can be licensed and earning within weeks of turning 18. Use it deliberately — get the licence, write down the incidents as they happen, train for the fire standard while you are being paid, and apply to everything. Next: the tests and interviews, or start with 737 job roles explained.

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