Is There an Official Martyn's Law Training Course?

Is There an Official or Approved Martyn's Law Course?

No. There's no official Martyn's Law course, no approved syllabus, and no certificate the Security Industry Authority (SIA) recognises. The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 doesn't mention a course, a provider or a qualification anywhere in it.

A mandatory training requirement was on the table while the law was being drafted. It came out after consultation, and what replaced it is softer and a good deal more practical: your procedures have to reach the people who'd put them into practice. How they get there is your call.

The regulator has been blunt about this. SIA guidance says that 'neither the SIA nor the Home Office is able to endorse or recommend specific companies or services for compliance with this legislation', and the Home Office myth buster says the same. Nobody is holding a list of approved training providers, because no such list exists.

You will see courses advertised as accredited. Read that word carefully. It normally means a private awarding body or a CPD scheme has reviewed the material, which is a commercial arrangement and a perfectly ordinary one. It isn't government accreditation, and it isn't what the Act asks for.

What Does the Act Ask You to Do Instead?

Two things, if your venue expects 200 to 799 people including staff and volunteers. Put public protection procedures in place covering evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication. And notify the SIA once that duty starts. The training question lives inside the first one: the procedures have to be communicated effectively to the people who'd carry them out.

That group is wider than the payroll. It covers employees full-time, part-time and casual, volunteers, contractors, agency and temporary workers, and anyone hiring your premises for their own event. If they'd be in the building when something happened, they need to know what the plan is.

No format is prescribed. The Home Office guidance accepts an instructional session, a shift briefing, an induction briefing for new starters, a written summary or procedure card, a poster in the staff area, a walk-through of the routes, a tabletop exercise, or a clause in your hire agreement. A ten-minute briefing at the start of a shift is a legitimate way to meet this duty. So is a laminated sheet by the till, as long as people have actually read it.

Above 799 you're into enhanced tier, where the duties are heavier and a written document is required. Check which tier applies to you before you plan any of this.

What Does a Paid Certificate Actually Prove?

That someone sat a general course on terrorism awareness and finished it. That's worth having. But it can't show the thing the Act is interested in: whether that person knows your exits, your safer areas, which door gets locked and by whom, and who rings 999. No off-the-shelf course has ever seen your building.

None of which makes commercial training a con. Some of it is well made, and if you'd rather hand new starters a ready-built course than write your own, that's a fair reason to buy one. The problem is what people think they're buying. Pay for a certificate believing it's the requirement and you've bought the wrong half of the job, because the requirement is a briefing you could have run yourself.

Think about how this gets tested in practice. The SIA has said it will take a support-first approach, so an early visit is likelier to look like a conversation than a paperwork audit. Ask a member of staff or a volunteer what happens if the venue has to lock down. A certificate in a folder doesn't answer that. The person does.

Isn't the SIA the Body That Licenses People?

It is, and this catches people out. The Security Industry Authority licenses door supervisors and security operatives under the Private Security Industry Act 2001. That's a separate job it has been doing for years, with a real qualification behind it and a real licence at the end.

Martyn's Law hands the same organisation a second, unrelated role as the regulator for premises. It doesn't extend licensing to your bar staff, your ushers or your volunteers, and it doesn't require you to employ anyone who holds a licence. Standard tier asks for procedures, not security personnel.

So an SIA licence isn't Martyn's Law training, and Martyn's Law training isn't an SIA licence. Worth keeping straight if you come across a course that mentions the SIA in its marketing, because the regulator's name appearing near a product doesn't make the product official.

The Training the Government Already Gives Away

The closest thing to official training is free. ACT Awareness e-Learning takes about 45 minutes, was built by Counter Terrorism Policing and NaCTSO, and covers suspicious behaviour, suspicious items, bomb threats and Run, Hide, Tell. SCaN for All Staff adds another 30 minutes on spotting hostile reconnaissance. Both are free, and both end with a certificate if that's what you want on file.

Our ACT training guide covers how to build a training plan around them, including who needs what and how often to refresh it.

For comparison, commercial Martyn's Law e-learning tends to run £25 to £30 plus VAT for a single seat, falling to roughly £9 to £10 a head on bulk orders (prices checked in August 2026). Per seat looks manageable on the first invoice. In hospitality, where teams turn over, it's the third invoice that stings.

The Half Nobody Sells You

Free courses cover awareness. Paid courses cover awareness. Neither covers your venue, and your venue is the bit the law asks about. Somebody still has to decide where people go when the front door isn't an option, write it down in a way a new starter can follow, get it in front of every member of staff and every volunteer, and be able to show later who knew what and when.

You can do all of that yourself for nothing. Plenty of venues do, and the free government resources will get you most of the way. It costs evenings rather than money. And it comes back round every time the team changes.

That recurring part is what we built Standard Tier for. You answer questions about your premises and it produces your procedures document in 10 minutes. Your staff and volunteers train on their phones by scanning a QR code, and the completion record keeps itself without you chasing signatures. The early bird price is £18 a month for your first venue (usually £38) for your first 12 months, and £18 a month for each additional venue. Unlimited staff and volunteers, with no per-seat charge, so turnover doesn't cost you anything.

So Should You Buy a Course?

Only if you want to, and only with your eyes open. Nothing in the Act requires it, there's no provision that gives an inspector a certificate to check against, and buying one doesn't discharge the duty on its own. If the budget is there and a ready-made module saves you writing your own, go ahead. Just do the venue-specific half as well, because that's the half the law is about.

Three things worth doing this week, in order:

1. Confirm your tier. Capacity includes staff and volunteers, and plenty of venues guess it wrong in both directions.
2. Write down what happens in each of the four procedures for your actual building, naming actual doors and actual people.
3. Brief the team on it and note the date. That note is your evidence that the procedures reached the people who'd use them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Official Sources

• Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025
• Martyn's Law myth buster (Home Office)
• Understanding Martyn's Law and the SIA's role as regulator
• Standard duty requirements factsheet (Home Office)
• ProtectUK free training catalogue

Related Guides

• Train your team free with the ACT training guide
• See what Martyn's Law compliance actually costs
• Learn what public protection procedures cover