Seeking employment working as a private detective or private investigator in the UK does not require a private investigator license in the UK.
However, the SIA (Security Industry Authority) has been requested by the British Government to extend their monitoring of the UK security industry services, through licensing, to the private investigator sector of the industry. Licensing by the Government for private investigators is subject to Ministerial approval but training centers around the UK are urging practicing private investigators to undertake the necessary training now so they can continue to work in the industry without any inconvenient gaps in services to their clients.

Employment opportunities in the private investigator sector are vast, as are the opportunities to train to become a private investigator and private detective courses.
Many private detective or private investigator roles such as undercover investigators, criminal investigators and polygraph examiners will require full training but other roles can be undertaken through trainee positions within a private investigator agency and if you have experience in law enforcement or in HR Forces private detective course will provide short courses to bring you up to speed.

Contrary to popular belief,private investigation jobs are not just finding evidence of adultery, although this is a large area of their work, there are many fields of expertise that go relatively unnoticed and include insurance investigators to look into suspicious claims,investigative due diligence for business background checks,fraud investigations for both private and business clients and those investigators who work as credit (finance) investigators responsibilities.

Many private investigators are hired to engage in a variety of tasks that are not usually associated to the security industry by the public. These jobs include those private detectives that are involved in process serving which is the personal delivery of legal documents, such as court summons, divorce papers and statutory demands. Many agencies specialise in tracing missing people and tracing debtors who have absconded.

There are private investigators who are professional witnesses and provide the court with information and evidence they have gathered for a case through observations. TSCM (Technical Surveillance Counter Measures)or bug sweeping is another area that a specialised private investigator will carry out an investigation into the location of hidden electronic devices, remove and destroy them.

This type of investigative work is carried out by those private investigators that have had previous experience inintelligence and counter-intelligence. Often these same private investigators can install eavesdropping equipment and devices as a tool in organised crime investigation. Corporate investigators specialize in corporate matters that include fraud investigation, loss prevention, and internal investigations – often into employee misconduct. The protection of a company includes information, intellectual property and trade secrets, copyright issues, due diligence investigations, malware and cyber criminal acts and finally computer forensics.