The Locksmith profession is one of the oldest and most respected professions around and still survives today. It is believed that the locksmith industry started over 4000 years ago in Ancient Egypt and Babylon.
A general belief was that the first locks were portable and small and were primarily used to protect personal belongings and goods from thieves who were common along ancient travel routes thousands of years ago.
Over the centuries the locksmith industry evolved and by the mid to late 20th Century it had become a well known, noble and respected profession with skills passed down from father the son for many generations, however, over the past few decades the industry has had it’s up and downs with reports of rogue traders, conmen and clueless amateurs all giving the industry a bad name and with the evolution of the internet and more recently, social media it has become much easier for these rogue, amateur locksmiths to advertise their services to unsuspecting businesses and individuals.
How do Rogue Locksmiths Generally Operate?
Typically the rogue or amateur locksmith will operate via social media using pre-paid mobile phones that they can replace when the number get associated with poor service or worse. Many of these amateurs will also sign up the national locksmith call centres too. A national or nationwide locksmith call centre is simply a call centre who’ll advertise online using PPC (pay per click).
At first glance national locksmith call centre will appear to promote themselves as a large nationwide locksmith company with engineers all over the country when in reality they’ll just call up an independent locksmith on their books who’s in your area and take a cut of the fee they charge.
There are two major issues will these locksmith call centres, the first is that the locksmith they send will be paying a monthly or annual fee and the call centre will also expect a cut from each job, this makes the fees charge by locksmiths sent out be these call centres much higher than they would be if you had called out a local independent locksmith direct. Online reports have seen people being charged £300+ for a simple access job that generally costs around £80.
The second major issue with these locksmith call centres is that they let anybody onto their books with no vetting regardless of their skill level, which makes them very popular with the rogue or amateur locksmith.
All Locksmith Training is The Same Isn’t It?
No, not all locksmith training is the same. In the past skills and knowledge where passed down from father to son but nowadays anyone can enter the profession by going on a locksmith training course. Unfortunately with the locksmith industry being unregulated, any individual or company can set up a training centre and start to offer locksmith training courses giving out certificates not worth the paper they are printed on.
For years the locksmith training industry seemed to regulate itself with only professional locksmiths with teaching degrees offering informative and in-depth training courses lasting 5 to 7 days, with additional training optional, but as competition grew more and more locksmith training companies start to emerge offering cut priced 2 day and 1 day courses to attract gullible students. Now any professional locksmith will tell you that you cannot learn anything in two days let alone 1 day and these amateur training centres started to churn out dozens of so-called qualified locksmiths by the day.
Luckily, Over the past few years the locksmith industry was in fact being monitored by OfQual (The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation) the government department that regulates qualifications, examinations and assessments in England. OfQual decided that the locksmith industry needed regulating, so contacted a number locksmith training centres, anonymously at first, to find out what qualifications they held in the teaching professional and the criteria required to train and become a qualified locksmith.
To their surprise only one locksmith training college, Train Locksmiths in Atherton, Gtr Manchester had qualified teachers and ran in-depth week long locksmith training courses and it was decided that OfQual along with Highfield Qualifications (One of the UK’s leading awarding organisations for vocational qualifications) would work with Train Locksmith to create and launch official, regulated Locksmith Qualifications to standardise the industry.
What Is The Future of The Locksmith Industry?
It’s exciting times for the Locksmith Industry in general. As these qualifications are the only regulated locksmith qualifications in the UK, a National Standard has now been created among the locksmith profession.
The new OfQual regulated courses were announced to the industry in Oct 2019 with courses due to begin in early 2020. Train Locksmiths have seen an unprecedented amount of sign-ups for the new official courses and have now teamed up with Manchester Metropolitan University to bring the new regulated course to more people. Nationwide satellite training centres are also planned for mid 2020 so more locksmiths can become qualified faster.
Regulating an industry as large as the locksmith industry is no small task, so no official date has been set by the government for legal compliance so at the moment locksmiths without the official diploma can still trade.
Rumour has it that it may be 4 year before it becomes a legal requirement, however, with an official OFQUAL qualification, locksmith professionals could take advantage of larger contracts within the commercial and construction industry, not the mention the fact that once the official qualifications become public knowledge the general public may think twice about hiring someone without an official qualification.