When you let a locksmith into your home, you are trusting a stranger with access to everything you own — and with the security of the people you love. So it is worth knowing an uncomfortable truth about the trade: in the UK, locksmithing is not regulated by the government. There is no legal licence to become a locksmith, which means anyone can buy a set of tools, set up a website, and start trading tomorrow with no training, no qualifications, and no checks whatsoever. This guide explains what that means for you, what the various badges and memberships actually signify, and why a nationally recognised accreditation like City & Guilds is the standard worth looking for.
Unlike gas engineers (Gas Safe) or, in parts of the security world, door staff and keyholders (who need a Security Industry Authority licence), locksmiths fall under no equivalent government scheme. The practical upshot is stark: the person who turns up at your door may be a highly trained professional — or someone who watched a few videos last week. Both can legally call themselves a locksmith, and from a Google advert you often cannot tell them apart.
This is exactly why what a locksmith has actually earned — their training and qualifications — matters so much more than what they simply call themselves.
Because there is no official regulator, a number of voluntary trade associations have grown up to fill the gap, the best known being the Master Locksmiths Association (MLA). The MLA has been established since 1958, is a genuine and well-run organisation, and has done a great deal to raise the profile of the trade; its members are vetted and inspected, which is a real positive. Credit where it is due — it has led the industry in awareness for decades.
But it is worth understanding precisely what such a body is, and is not. A trade association is a voluntary membership organisation — locksmiths choose to join and pay a subscription. It is not a government regulator, and membership of any association is a different thing from holding a nationally recognised qualification. The first says a locksmith has joined a club that sets its own entry rules; the second says an independent, government-regulated awarding body has formally assessed their competence against a national standard. Both have value — but they are not the same thing.
This is where City & Guilds comes in, and why we built our network around it. City & Guilds is one of the oldest and most respected awarding bodies in the country, established in 1878 and operating under a Royal Charter granted in 1900. Crucially, it is regulated by Ofqual — the government-appointed Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation — and its awards sit on the official Regulated Qualifications Framework, the same national framework that underpins qualifications across every skilled trade.
In other words, a City & Guilds accreditation is not a self-issued badge or a membership a locksmith has paid to display. It is a credential delivered through a centre that has itself been formally approved — and held to strict standards — by a body answerable to a government regulator. That is precisely the kind of independent, accountable assurance an unregulated trade otherwise lacks.
Anyone can join a trade association. A City & Guilds accreditation means an independent, government-regulated awarding body has set the standard a locksmith’s training was held to.
We take this seriously enough that we did something unusual: rather than simply hope our locksmiths were well trained, we made sure of it. Every LocksmithLocal locksmith is trained to City & Guilds accredited standard, and is additionally certified through NCFE — another nationally recognised awarding body, recognised by the qualification regulators across England, Wales and Northern Ireland — to Level 3, a standard broadly equivalent to A level study in its size and rigour.
We are able to guarantee this because our locksmiths are trained through our own accredited training arm, MPL Training — an approved provider able to deliver City & Guilds accredited and NCFE certified locksmith training. It means the standard is not left to chance or to a badge bought online; it is built into how every locksmith on our network is brought in.
Whether or not you call us, the principles are the same. Before you let someone work on your locks, it is reasonable to ask:
The wider checklist of how to choose well is in our guide to choosing a locksmith you can trust, and how a good one proves a property is yours before working on it is covered in how locksmiths verify ownership.
A named, vetted master locksmith covers your area — no call-out fee.
In a trade where the law sets no minimum bar, the bar a locksmith sets for themselves is everything. A nationally recognised, government-regulated accreditation like City & Guilds is the clearest signal that the person at your door has been properly trained and independently assessed — not just well marketed. It is the standard we hold every one of our locksmiths to, because when it comes to the security of your home, “trust me” should never be something you have to take on faith.
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