SIA Top Up Refresher Training in Birmingham

SIA Top Up Refresher Training in Birmingham

Renewing your SIA Door Supervisor licence? The SIA Top Up Refresher Training in Birmingham covers your full refresher requirement over two days at our Shirley centre, with Emergency First Aid at Work included in the same booking.

Total fee: £220, with just £70 to book online and £150 payable at the office.

Why the Refresher Is Now Mandatory

Since 1 April 2025, the SIA will not renew a Door Supervisor licence unless you hold a current refresher qualification.

You need this course if you’re renewing on or after that date, or if you qualified before April 2021 and never completed your Top-Up training.

Time Your Renewal Properly

Most renewal problems come down to timing rather than difficulty. Here’s where the time actually goes.

You book and train. Courses run regularly, so you’re rarely waiting long for a place. Two days, and every assessment happens during them.

Your results arrive. Certification takes 14 to 15 working days.

The SIA processes your application. Approval takes up to eight weeks, and nothing you do speeds it up.

Altogether that’s roughly three months from booking to badge in hand. So if your licence expires in March, booking in February is already too late.

And a lapsed licence is expensive. The moment your badge expires you cannot legally work front-line, not one shift, until the new one arrives. At West Midlands door rates, a few weeks off the doors costs several times what this course does. That’s why most officers book three to four months before expiry rather than cutting it fine.

Emergency First Aid Is Included

The SIA won’t process your renewal without a valid Emergency First Aid at Work certificate alongside your refresher.

Plenty of officers discover this only after booking a refresher elsewhere, then have to find a separate first aid provider and take another day off work. We teach EFAW inside the same booking, so both requirements are cleared together.

Already hold an in-date certificate? Tell us when you book.

What the Two Days Cover

Unit 1: Principles of Working as a Door Supervisor

Lawful search procedures, safeguarding vulnerable people, terror-threat awareness, and preventing drink and drug spiking in licensed venues.

Assessment: a multiple-choice examination of 35 questions over 55 minutes, plus a practical search assessment.

Unit 2: Practical Physical Intervention Skills

The risks and legal implications of going hands on, reducing the likelihood of harm, self-protection techniques, and safe non-pain-compliant control and escorting.

Assessment: a multiple-choice examination of 30 questions over 45 minutes, a practical intervention assessment, and an oral question and answer session.

Both days are mandatory. Miss part of the course and your certificate may not stand.

Switching to a Security Guard Licence?

This course renews a Door Supervisor licence specifically. If you’re moving to a Security Guard licence instead, you’ll need the Security Guard refresher, which runs over one day. Call us on 020 8050 4108 and we’ll point you to the right course.

Where You’ll Train

Our centre is The Shirley Club, 135 Marshall Lake Road, Solihull B90 4RB, about seven miles from Birmingham city centre.

Shirley station reaches Birmingham Moor Street or Snow Hill in 15 to 20 minutes, the Stratford Road bus corridor runs frequent services into town, and the M42 at Junction 4 is minutes away with parking on site. That makes it a straightforward journey from Birmingham, Solihull, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Redditch and across the West Midlands.

Because the refresher is only two days, most officers fit it around a working week without losing shifts.

How to Book

1. Choose a date that clears your renewal deadline with room to spare
2. Pay the £70 deposit to secure your place
3. Receive your confirmation and joining instructions by email
4. Attend both days and settle the £150 balance at the office

Once you pass, apply for your renewal through the SIA licence application service. We also recommend the free ACT counter-terrorism e-learning, our ACT Training guide walks you through it, and employers increasingly ask for it.

Starting out rather than renewing? You need the SIA Door Supervisor Course Birmingham, which runs six days at this same venue.