3 May 2026
Manned guarding or mobile patrols?
Clients often ask for “a security guard” when what they need is a visit, and they ask for “a patrol” when someone has to stand at a barrier. The two services solve different problems. Buying the wrong one wastes money and still leaves the gap.
Manned guarding means an officer assigned to a place for a shift. Use it when a person has to be there at the moment something happens: a reception, a shop floor, a hotel door, a factory gate at shift change, or an event entrance. If vehicles must be checked before they enter, a patrol that arrives later cannot do that job. The officer’s value is presence and judgement, which only works if they have been told the rules.
Mobile patrols mean a visiting officer and vehicle. Use them when the building is shut, when you have several units, or when you want an unpredictable check rather than a person in a chair all night. A patrol cannot be in two yards at once. If you need four visits, say four visits. Do not accept a quote that implies constant cover from a single drive-by.
There is a third option. Key holding is for alarms and authorised access. It pairs well with patrols: the patrol looks at the outside on a planned round, and the key holder attends when the alarm says something has happened between rounds. It is a poor substitute for a gate officer on a live site.
A simple test: if you removed the officer for an hour at your busiest time, would the operation stop or become unsafe? If yes, you want manned guarding for that hour at least. If the building would simply be locked and empty, price a patrol or key holding first. Many West Midlands industrial estates are in the second group. Many Birmingham offices are in the first group until 6pm and the second group afterwards. Split the day. We do that routinely.
Write the risky hour down before you call. Saturday retail, a Friday night venue, a 5am warehouse inbound, a Sunday lock-up on a dead estate: they are not the same product. Our services pages break this out by setting. If you want us to choose, send the address and what a normal day looks like. We would rather recommend the smaller service than staff a post with nothing to do.