No right to work accounts for 90% of SIA licence revocations since 2022

The Security Industry Authority (SIA) has published a Freedom of Information (FOI) response setting out the total number of SIA licence revocations from 2022 to 2026 and the reasons behind them. The response, published on 19 August 2026, covers data from 1 January 2022 to 2 August 2026.

No right to work dominates SIA licence revocations. Of 24,969 SIA licence revocations recorded over the period, 22,526, around 90 per cent, were because the holder no longer had the right to work in the UK. All other reasons combined account for the remaining 10 per cent.

Other reasons for revocation. The next most common reason was violent or abusive behaviour, accounting for 1,065 revocations over the period, followed by an Other category (640), sexual behaviour (265), drug use or supply (231), dishonesty, theft, fraud or proceeds of crime (162), offensive weapons or firearms (129), criminal damage (80), and abuse or neglect of children (58). Revocations linked to the private security industry itself, driving offences, Operation Siren, and espionage or terrorism each numbered fewer than 60 over the period, with several figures suppressed below 10 to prevent identification of individuals.

Right to work revocations by nationality. A second dataset breaks down the 22,526 right to work revocations by nationality. Pakistani nationals accounted for the largest share, at 9,625, around 43 per cent, followed by Indian nationals at 7,861, around 35 per cent, and Nigerian nationals at 2,898, around 13 per cent. Together, these three nationalities accounted for over 90 per cent of all right to work revocations over the period. Bangladeshi nationals (707) and Ghanaian nationals (429) were the next largest groups, with a long tail of other nationalities each numbering in the tens or fewer.

Yearly totals. Revocations rose across the period, from 1,260 in 2022 to 3,860 in 2023, 6,968 in 2024 and 8,295 in 2025. The 2026 figure of 4,586 covers only the seven months to 2 August, so is not directly comparable with the earlier full year totals.

Caveats on the data. The SIA has set out several caveats. Data is only available from January 2022, since revocation reasons were not recorded systematically before December 2021. Figures below 10 have been suppressed to avoid identifying individuals. The data counts licences, not unique licence holders, since one individual may hold more than one licence. The reason categories are not mutually exclusive, a single revoked licence may fall into more than one category, so the reason totals do not add up to the overall number of revoked licences. The SIA also notes that the Other category is predominantly, though not exclusively, linked to right to work cases, and that a small number of cases handled outside its standard process are not captured in these figures.

The full FOI response, reference FOI 0621, and the underlying data, are available from GOV.UK.