Notoriously hard to calculate, new research takes aim at identifying the market size of global physical security. Undertaken to better understand the scope and breadth of the physical security sector, the findings indicate a vibrant market, with regional differences, and has a few surprises, including that security services remains the dominate player, significantly larger than the security equipment sector.

Key Points

• A new research report estimates the global physical security industry is worth $405 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow to nearly $500 billion by 2026.
• The expected growth in the physical security market exceeds predictions for other major industries.
• Despite innovative technologies, the security equipment sector is far smaller than security services, and guarding comprises about half of the total services market.
• Demand for security services, particularly guarding, is running particularly high in Latin America and Africa, reports suggest.

The overall physical security market totals $405 billion in 2023, according to joint research from ASIS International and the Security Industry Association (“Complexities in the Global Security Market: 2024 Through 2026”). The study provides insights into the equipment, technologies, and employment of the global security industry, including regional market breakouts. In addition to estimating the overall market value, the report includes analyses of regional demand and service and equipment preferences, as well as the impact of technology trends like artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

“The industry has long needed a study to understand the scope and breadth of the security sector,” said Peter O’Neil, ASIS International CEO. Tackling the issue has long been a complicated endeavor, as there has always been a lack of agreed-upon definitions for many elements within security and even of “security” itself, a natural result of security being multidimensional in nature and diverse in practice. It is not always entirely clear which firms and services should fall under the heading of security—creating a challenge for researchers attempting to determine the size and value of the market. In reviewing the results of this research effort, O’Neil said it demonstrates that the strength, vitality, and importance of the security industry has never been more apparent.

Some key findings:

• The physical security services market is estimated at $319 billion in 2023, with the guarding market accounting for 47% of the total security services market.
• The security equipment market is far smaller, about $56 billion in 2023, with video surveillance taking up around half of that amount.
• Recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, physical security equipment should surpass $60 billion in 2024 and reach $70 billion by 2026. The biggest shares of the market are in China ($14.8 billion, 29% of total), North America ($13.6 billion, 27%), and Europe ($9.5 billion, 19%).

The physical security market employs more than 30 million people worldwide, according to the ASIS/SIA study. Included are 210,000 individuals working in the equipment market, about 8 million in the services market, and 22.6 million working as security end users.

Even inclusive categorization, however, will ignore a large segment of workers who play critical roles in protecting organizational assets but fall within other disciplines, such as business continuity, risk management, or human resources.

How Does Security Market Compare to Other Industries?

The size of the physical security market demonstrates its critical role in society and contribution to economies. Its $405 billion market size is more than the global Advertising Agency market ($364 billion), nears the market for Global Accounting Services ($622 billion), and puts it roughly in line with the global courier, express and parcel services market ($484 billion).

Physical security is also an extremely healthy market. With a projected annual growth of 11.11% CAGR, it outpaces the projected annual growth rates in most industries, including global apparel manufacturing (4.6%) and engineering services (5.7%), and is on par with the expected growth in the worldwide oil and gas industry.

For years, multiple factors have been driving spending on security, helping to push the global market past $400 billion. These include long-term societal and institutional changes, as well as an evolving threat environment. Specific drivers of spending on private security have included:

• Reductions in public policing and transfer of protection tasks and activities to the private sector;
• Desire for protection beyond that provided by public policing;
• A growing sense that a robust defense is a sound business investment;
• The inability of police to investigate/prevent certain categories of crime (sophisticated financial fraud, for example);
• Spending to meet regulatory requirements, industry standards for security, and to reduce liability;
• Terrorism and major active assailant attacks;
• Growing numbers and intensity of natural disasters; and
• Sophistication of security technology and increasing professionalism in the security industry.

Hot Markets

The physical security equipment market is more uniform than the services market, according to the report. “The security services markets are more heavily influenced by regional or country-specific trends when compared with the equipment markets,” the report said. “Guarding costs are driven by local salary requirements and infrastructure costs. This means that North America has a proportionally higher market size when compared with lower-cost regions such as India or Southeast Asia.”

While demand for guarding is strong globally, anecdotal evidence suggests some markets are particularly hot. One of them is in Latin America, where rising crime rates and ineffective law enforcement has created growing demand for private security. Consequently, the industry there has been growing 2% faster than the annual growth seen in the rest of the world, noted Adam Blackwell, former Secretary for Multidimensional Security at the Organization of American States, in an analysis of the industry in Latin America.

In Brazil, for example, private security companies are experiencing high demand for electronic monitoring solutions, bodyguards, and armored vehicles to address increasing insecurity, according to a recent Bloomberg report (“Mossad-Inspired Private Security Industry Thrives in Brazil Amidst Surge in Urban Violence,” Sept. 2023). Paulo Goulart, CEO of the Gocil Group which has 20,000 employees and 1,800-plus bodyguards, said he’s had growing demand for the provision of armored cars and for teams to accompany top executives in dangerous regions of the country (paying a monthly fee of $806 for half a day).

South Africa is another growing market, partly because of the country’s police force is facing a personnel crisis, according to the country’s Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA). “Experts have warned that the South African police are losing the battle against crime — and that has led those citizens who can afford it to turn to a booming private security industry,” according to reporting by the Associated Press (“As police lose the war on crime in South Africa, private security companies step in,” Jan. 7, 2024).

Demand for security and guarding services from the private sector have grown significantly, a direct result of the constraints experienced within the South African Police Service (SAPS), according to the PSIRA. Private security guards are taking up more roles and tasks that are typically the mandate of the SAPS, and the number of registered and actively employed security guards in the country (nearly 600,000) outnumbers the number of police by 4 to 1. From 2014 to 2022, the number of actively employed security officers increased by 20% and the number of active security businesses increased by 42%. Similar significant growth has been seen in recent years across Africa, according to the Private Security Governance Observatory, a network of African civil society organizations.  

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