A recent article by the International Security Ligue highlights a global challenge for the private security sector: what it calls the “job prestige disconnect”, writes Nicholas Dynon.
Security work is “chronically undervalued,” despite its growing importance in an increasingly complex risk environment. That’s the argument put forward in the article The Job Prestige Disconnect: Why Security Work is Chronically Undervalued (And What To Do About It).
It’s an argument that resonates with many a security practitioner. Many of us are all too aware of the perception issues the private security sector faces, from the many customers who consider security a grudge purchase to the public in general who are often confused about what it is we actually do.
At its core, the article identifies a fundamental mismatch. Security professionals are tasked with safeguarding people, assets, and public spaces—often operating at the frontline of risk—yet the role is still widely perceived as low-skill and low-status. As it bluntly observes, “the societal perception of security work has not kept pace with its real-world responsibilities.”
It’s a mismatch that’s quantified in a research article published in 2024 in the peer-reviewed scholarly journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. The article, authored by Professors Gemma Newlands and Christoph Lutz, measured the ‘occupational prestige’ (an occupation’s societal status and respect) and ‘occupational social value’ (an occupation’s usefulness and positive contribution to society) of 576 occupations in the UK.
The authors then ranked each occupation according to their prestige and their social value. The ‘security guard’ occupation’s occupational prestige score of 39.61 (below average) and its occupational social value score of 53.68 (above average) gave it one of the most negative ‘prestige-social value differences’ (-14.06) among all occupations. In other words, society’s need for security guards significantly exceeds the level of respect it gives to the security guard occupation.
This mismatch of low prestige but high social value, places security officers among a group that includes childcare workers, home and health aides, hospital admissions personnel, and other jobs that are essential to societal functioning but are often overlooked or undervalued in terms of status and remuneration.
This disconnect is not merely reputational; it has operational consequences. When security is undervalued, it is underpaid, undertrained, and underinvested. The result is a cycle familiar to us here in New Zealand: high staff turnover, inconsistent service quality, and ongoing difficulty attracting skilled personnel.
The Ligue’s article captures this in terms of a vicious cycle: “low prestige drives low investment, which in turn reinforces low prestige.”
One of the most significant contributors to this problem, it suggests, is procurement behaviour. Security services are still too often purchased as a commodity. Contracts are awarded on price rather than performance, capability, or outcomes. The old ‘security as a cost centre’ chestnut.
The commoditisation of security services discourages innovation and professionalisation, and it places reputable providers at a disadvantage against operators willing to cut corners. Regulatory frameworks, such as those overseen by the Private Security Personnel Licensing Authority (PSPLA), have helped lift baseline standards. But, compliance alone does not equate to professional recognition.
In New Zealand, even with increasing scrutiny by the PSLSA and the excellent work done by the NZSA to promote voluntary standards, the sector continues to battle perception challenges, and despite the overwhelming majority of practitioners operating professionally.
With procurement and public policy identified in the Ligue’s article as the systemic drivers of the vicious cycle, its authors suggest that the lack of prestige afforded to security guards is policy driven rather than resulting from limitations within the occupation itself. In short, “policy choices, not inherent occupational limits, determine whether security work is properly valued.”
Given this, the Ligue suggests that a correction of the ‘social prestige’ – ‘social value’ mismatch is possible, but that it should be driven by government and buyers in the areas of regulation enforcement, quality-focused procurement criteria, and the funding of career pathways.
Its focus on the government as having a key role to play is likely informed by its April 2025 publication, the Global Security Barometer 2025.
“Global differences in public opinion toward private security officers underscore the fact that governments give shape to those attitudes, through the standards they set and by whether or not they aggressively regulate bad actors in the industry,” stated the authors of the Barometer.
The Barometer called on governments to:
- Understand citizens’ level of trust in (and satisfaction with) private security officers.
- Develop regulatory frameworks to improve public trust and enhance the industry’s image.
- Create standards designed to promote occupational prestige and ensure an adequate baseline of quality and training.
- Update their taxonomy for security (to match industry jobs which have become more specialised) to improve its ability to support the industry and collect data on it.
- Promote visibility of private security officers’ critical role in security governance through police-private security partnerships and to classify them as essential workers.
Ultimately, the Ligue sees the ‘prestige gap’ as not just a branding problem, but as a structural one that’s beyond the security industry itself to resolve. Given this, it sees that government has not just a role to play in closing the gap but indeed a responsibility to do so.
