How to become a private investigator – and get paid up to £80,000
Imagine you’re going to the airport. On the way you see a black cab driver, someone on a moped and a cyclist. When you arrive, someone’s dining solo at the next table. On the plane, a passenger takes their seat five rows in front of you.
There’s nothing unusual so far, so why would you wonder what they all had in common? Next time you might, since they could all be private investigators. Following you.
The world of private investigating conjures up images of spies in trench coats breaking into someone’s home, covertly tailing a target down rainy streets or jumping into a taxi and uttering the immortal words: “follow that car”.
For the even more imaginative, it becomes a James Bond-style world of secret agents, disguises, elaborate gadgets and crossing borders to defeat evil masterminds.
Yet while the reality brings little in the way of 007’s gun fights, car chases or giant mountain lairs, those who actually do the job say there’s a bit of truth in the comparison.
When I spoke to Aaron Bond, director of detective agency Bond Rees, he was in Thailand. Part-way through conducting surveillance, he was more than happy to chat as he kept a keen eye out for his target.
“For people out there looking for work, young adults, it’s like a James Bond movie for them,” he said. “They would absolutely love it. You don’t know what you’re getting day to day. Everyone we employ, you have to have a passport on you ready – 50pc of the time you’re going on a plane.
“We could do with more people, to be honest. It’s a profession which is so small, such a small group of people do it properly and are properly trained, vetted and have the relevant skills.”
For someone wanting to step into the world of professional espionage, it sounds like there might be a vacancy. Certainly, the frequent travel, good wages and a varied day job are an attractive proposition. However, it’s not exactly an open shop, and the lifestyle is certainly not for everyone.
Here, Telegraph Money explains what it takes to get started.
What’s the first step for joining the profession?
“The majority of people employed are ex-police, ex-military, ex-special forces, ex-MI5 or MI6,” said Mr Bond. “After their public service, we employ a lot of those sorts of people. A lot of it’s word of mouth, no one is putting ‘MI5’ on a webform.
“There’s no background that’s an absolute must, but [previously trained professionals are] preferred. We work with some massive high profile clients and Mrs Jones who lives next door to you. You can’t have any leaks, data leaks, any people not of the right calibre.
“The majority have had a full career and they don’t fit into ‘normal’ jobs.”
This isn’t to say that Bond Rees doesn’t take civilians, but rigorous preparation is needed before you’d even be considered for going into the field. It can take weeks of training just to be qualified to sit outside a building and keep watch.
Mr Bond adds: “If they want a job in this line of work, they apply through the website. For Joe Bloggs, civilian-wise, the first step is our website. We train them up fully. It’s the most extensive training package out there. We don’t charge them anything. We just need them to do our work and achieve our goals for clients.
“If you’ve got no training and definitely haven’t got a military background, people won’t pick up a phone to you. They won’t even talk to you.”
Are there any qualifications required?
There’s no legal requirement to get a qualification, but they do exist. There’s a Level 3 BTEC for professional investigators, for instance, while for £299 you can get on the Skills For Justice Level 3 Professional Investigators Course. There are other qualifications in key areas that might come in handy, such as forensics or surveillance.
However, no one gets left out in the cold for not having a piece of paper – and there’s no substitute for experience.
Mr Bond said: “In the very beginning when you leave the army, you do the CTP [Career Transition Partnership] group. That’s a bunch of companies that work with the military. There’s people there who are providers of training to be an electrician, paint walls, cyber stuff. But they’ll also do the private investigation stuff.”
Peter Torley is lead detective at Private Detective London. He said: “I don’t have any official recognised qualifications for this industry. My background is I worked with law enforcement, so I had a grounding from there.
“There are organisations that offer training and qualifications. I get many people coming to me and saying ‘I’m a train driver, can I work for you?’ but my response is no, because you need that experience and you can’t learn it in a classroom.”
Private investigation, as an industry, is unregulated. In addition to not needing official qualifications, you also don’t need to register – but you can do so voluntarily.
The Association of British Investigators (ABI) has been around since 1913, and says it leads the way in compliance via self-regulation – investigators have to meet the organisation’s strict requirements to register and more than 400 operators have signed up globally.
Even though you don’t have to register, don’t be fooled into thinking this presents an opportunity for loose cannons, and it certainly doesn’t mean you can flout the law, either here or abroad.
You cannot, for example, break into someone’s house or office, or track their car without their permission. It’s particularly relevant given many of them are called to testify in court.
Both Mr Bond and Mr Torley were very clear that being aware of the law and keeping within it are vital parts of any private investigator’s skillset.
How much does a private investigator earn?
Many investigators are self-employed and earnings can vary widely depending on experience and what you’re being hired to do. Income often ranges from £0-£60,000 a year, but some cases you’re assigned will pay more than average. It’s possible to earn £80,000 or more.
Mr Torley said: “It all really depends on how good you are. I’ve been doing this for quite a few years. Lots of people are asking to come and work for you and less than half have survived the year. It generally works on a self-employed basis.”
There’s clearly a huge difference between sitting in a taxi watching a building and more dangerous undercover services, with pay scales to match.
Mr Bond said: “We employ black cabs and we can sit outside somewhere all day. We supply them with everything – vehicle, licence, training. If the subject works in a high profile bank, for example, there’s a hell of a lot of security. There’s too much security for you to go unnoticed. We might have three guys in the back, a moped rider, a guy on a pushbike.
“We also send people into cults to get the client’s family member out.”
He said this kind of service is usually reserved for ex-members of the intelligence services.
“Not all cults are on Netflix every night. We need specialised people for that. The only way to get them out is to go in there. If we put them into fully-fledged cults, they’ll go in for months and months and it doesn’t bother them in the slightest. This kind of stuff has no scare factor.”
What does a typical day look like?
It’s a cliché, but this line of work is probably the epitome of the old adage “no two days are the same”. When they’re not busy infiltrating cults, private investigators perform all manner of other services – and a case doesn’t always end where it starts.
Mr Torley said: “One day you’re doing surveillance, background checks, checking sources, tracing someone down. One minute you’re in London, the next minute you’re on a plane to Ibiza. You’ve got to have everything organised, passport in date and all things ready to go.”
In terms of what you might be investigating, common themes are before or during divorce proceedings to try and prove whether someone is having an affair, or maybe just having a new partner checked.
“Pre-marital stuff these days,” he explained, “where someone has met this person and they’ve probably been burnt before, but something isn’t quite right and they want this checking out.” But it can also go right up to industrial espionage.
Mr Bond has seen a lot of corporate cases. He said: “What’s massive is where people are not fulfilling their non-compete when they leave one of these big legal firms. They’re away trying to steal their clients and setting up.
“Whether it’s going to Australia, the US, the UAE, we sit by them and follow them for 10-15 days. We’re next to them when they’re having their business meeting, for the employer to take legal action, and that shuts them down.”
But, again, the range of services is very wide-ranging.
He continued: “We also specialise in bug sweeping in offices, football stadiums, masses of companies in London. We train people to do lie detector tests. We find debtors, long lost family members.
“We work from Land’s End to as far as Scotland, Northern Ireland. From West Wales to the North East. We’re at it every day, the phone doesn’t stop ringing. We send them from the UK as well, as long as it’s all legal and above board.”
Another cliché conjures up images of someone with a long lens camera trying to catch cheating spouses in their hotel window. Both men say this kind of work is still common – and it even comes with its own peak and off peak seasons.
Mr Bond said: “That’s where it all started, the infidelity. That has its quiet times – kids off school for six weeks, Easter, it goes quiet because they’re [the couple] around each other.”
But when you are on a job, don’t expect to be able to stick to the usual 9 to 5. Mr Torley said: “Don’t make too many plans. The main work is in the daytime but they go into the night, into the weekend. The only time you tend to get a break is really Christmas. Families come together and most problems seem to die down. It spikes back in the New Year.”
What are the main perks?
If you can cope with the long hours, last-minute travel and unpredictable nature of the job, being a private investigator can be very rewarding.
“For me it’s the chase and getting the results,” said Mr Torley. “I love to get the results and have some closure for the clients by getting something tangible. The money is always welcome.”
Mr Bond has a personal highlight: “It has to be reuniting a past client with her child that she lost to a religious cult for 17 months. During this time the client was going through treatment for stage three lymph node cancer.
“Seeing her eyes come alive when she saw her kid again was a big eye opener for me personally. It made me think twice about how valuable family and life is.”
For those who’ve had previously much more dangerous jobs, Mr Bond said it can also be a welcome change.
“They’re not infiltrating the IRA any more, they’re out in the UK. It gives them somewhere where they can still fire off their skills but they get to go home and see their family and are paid a lot better than the public sector.”
What are the worst parts of the job?
Witnessing people’s lives up close, particularly when they don’t know you’re watching, can take a toll. Frequently, suspicions turn out to be true and it can make delivering the results a difficult process. There are also drawbacks to being self-employed in an industry that relies on people’s problems.
Mr Torley said: “You are generally dealing with the darker side of life. People always come to you with problems. It can have a lot of stress on you from what you’re seeing and dealing with. You’re dealing with clients in a bad place in life, so their mental state is not good.”
And, while the surprising and varied nature of the job can be a plus, it can also become an issue.
“It massively encroaches on your family and personal life. From a job perspective, you never quite know when your next bit of work will be. You’re reliant on people having a situation to deal with and it’s not as easy to predict as other businesses,” Mr Torley added.
He also mentioned that the secretive nature of the job can have an impact when you want to borrow money: “The profession isn’t regulated, so [if] you try and get a financial product and tell them what you do, I’m not saying it’s a blacklist, but it can raise questions. It’s not a professional qualification like in certain industries.”
Mr Bond said: “The worst part has to be breaking the news to a spouse or partner that actually, yes, your suspicion was true – ‘we have just caught your partner cheating, here are the pictures.’ I had four consecutively yesterday, all in London.”
Is there a work pension scheme?
There isn’t a specialist pension for private investigators.
Mr Torley said he doesn’t pay into a pension as he’s self-employed, though he thinks he should probably start.
Bond Rees employs 35 people as full-time staff, but a lot are beyond state pension age and so don’t need to be offered one. Those young enough don’t earn enough yet, as many are part-time and midway through proving their long-term credentials.
However, Mr Bond said it’s something they will look at when the need arises.
How many private investigators operate in the UK?
This is a tough question to answer. Some claim there are 10,000, but others say this is out of date and based on too many assumptions.
The ABI has more than 400 members, but this is worldwide. As there’s no requirement to sign up, it might not be reflective of the full industry either.
The true number could easily fall between those two amounts, but as secrecy can be an asset in this line of work, there’s no real way of truly knowing.
What’s more certain is if someone suspects you’ve got something to hide, and they’re willing to pay to find out what it is, a private investigator could be watching you right now.
