Second Income: Six Ways Protectors Earn Without a Day Rate

One of the problems with earning a good day rate is that it can make planning for anything else feel unnecessary. The work is coming in, the client is happy and there is another booking in the diary. Finding time to build a second income can wait.

Until the booking disappears, or you are no longer fit to take it.

In June, Keelson Strategic advertised an on-call executive protection position in Chicago at $700 (£524) a day. Applicants needed two years of EP experience, including time on an embedded single-client team, an Illinois PERC registration card and CPR. It is a useful example of what experience can earn. It also shows the dependency most of us recognize: the income relies on being available to do the work.

A client can sell the business or bring protection in-house. An injury can take you off the roster. Neither event takes away your judgment or the years spent developing it, but both can stop you earning from it in the way you always have.

That is a good reason to start while you still have choices. The day rate can pay for a course, cover the early costs and give you time to find out whether anyone will buy the service you have in mind. Trying to do all of that after the work stops puts a very different pressure on the decision.

Here we compare six routes experienced protectors can build: consultancy, residential security program design, training, remote intelligence, technical surveillance countermeasures and expert witness work. We look at the published rates, entry costs, licensing barriers and likely time to a first invoice, with US and UK figures and the restrictions to understand before considering the Gulf.

The aim is to help you choose something that fits your experience and your working life, then have it earning before the end of 2027. The companion Second Income Revenue Model puts those choices against your own day rate, including the hours and costs that are easy to leave out.