Nationwide Keyholding and Alarm Response Services
Protecting businesses and homes across the UK with professional keyholding, rapid alarm response and reliable security services.
What is Keyholding and Alarm Response?
Keyholding is a professional security service where a trusted provider securely holds a set of your property keys and responds on your behalf in the event of an alarm activation or emergency.
Our trained response team attends your property, investigates the situation, and takes appropriate action to secure the premises. This removes the need for business owners or staff to attend incidents themselves.
We provide this service nationwide across the UK, ensuring consistent coverage and rapid response regardless of location.
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Why choose us?
Trusted nationwide for 24/7 keyholding and alarm response services, we combine experience, reliability, and a personal approach to protect your property across the UK. So, what really sets us apart from other keyholding companies?”
Trusted by businesses across the UK
Happy, satisfied customers with one of the highest retention rates in the industry. We welcome many new clients who switch to us from unreliable or unsatisfactory providers.
Highly recommended for reliable service
Most of our business comes from repeat customers and referrals, reflecting the consistency and reliability of our service.
Keyholding and alarm response specialists
With more than 10 years of experience, we secure thousands of properties across multiple sectors, providing professional keyholding and alarm response services.
Tailored keyholding solutions
Every property is different. We take the time to understand your needs and create a keyholding and response solution tailored specifically to you.
Technology enabled, human led service
We use technology to support our service, not replace it. You won't be dealing with chatbots, just real people delivering reliable support.
Highly trained
sausage dog unit
Wouldn’t that be something,
but alas, no, that’s a fake, just checking you’re still awake… 😊
Our services
Keyholding and alarm response remain at the heart of what we do. We also offer these complementary security services for business and residential properties.
Keyholding
Keyholding
A keyholding service is a professional security solution where your property keys are securely stored by an accredited security provider. If an alarm is triggered or an emergency occurs, trained SIA licensed security officers attend your premises, investigate the situation, liaise with the police if required, and ensure your property is safe and secure without requiring you or your staff to respond.
With over 30 years of experience, City Keyholding provides trusted keyholding and alarm response services for businesses across the UK. Available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, our professional security officers deliver rapid response, expert incident management, and complete peace of mind whenever your property needs protecting.
Alarm response
Alarm Response
Round the clock rapid response to all alarm activations at your property.
We can also tailor our response to meet your unique security needs – possibly limiting our response to a specific time window, or only responding to specific types of alarm activations.
Click here to find out more about what happens when your alarm activates.
Mobile patrols
Mobile Patrols
Mobile patrols are a great way to prevent unwanted attention at your premises. They are a fraction of the cost of providing a full-time security guard. They can be quickly scaled up or down to meet your exact needs. You can specify the timing, frequency, route and even ask us to turn off the lights, water the plants, or pick-up the post.
Locks and unlocks
Locks and unlocks
- Staff can start and finish work at their usual times
- Your property will be fully locked down overnight, once late workers and cleaners have left
- Your property will be opened and ready for you before everyone arrives
- Vulnerable areas will be checked; windows, doors and fire exits
Third party access visits
Third party access visits
When you can’t be there yourself, we can let authorised third parties into your property. A really useful service if you need to give access to a tradesman or if you are expecting an important delivery that you don’t want to miss. We can give authorised third parties access and wait until they are finished, or come back at a pre-arranged time and secure the property.
House checks
House checks
You want to be assured that your property is safe and sound when you’re away for a period of time on holiday or business trips. Furthermore, our house checks can be tailored to include whatever you, or your insurance company need.
Our house checks can include:
- Inspecting the general condition of the exterior and interior
- Checking for water leaks and water damage
- Checking for fire and electrical hazards
- Running taps and flushing the loos
- Removing junk mail from the front entrance
- Taking meter readings
- Picking up your post and if requested, forwarding it
We can also supply you with a full report and photographs after each visit.
Empty property checks
Empty property checks
More and more insurance companies are making empty property checks a requirement in line with the terms of their policies. It’s also recognised that empty properties represent an easy target for vandals, thieves, arsonists and squatters.
Our empty property checks can include:
- Inspecting the general condition of the exterior and interior
- Looking for evidence of graffiti and vandalism
- Checking for water leaks and water damage
- Looking for fire and electrical hazards
- Taking meter readings
We can also supply you with a full report and photographs after each visit.
Lone worker welfare check
Lone worker monitoring
and welfare checks
Many businesses require their key personnel to work alone in potentially vulnerable situations. We can provide a simple and cost effective solution to ensure your staff are safe, day or night.
If you need us to, we can send a Response Officer to them immediately, giving you absolute peace of mind.
Fire alarm testing
Fire alarm testing
Regular fire alarm testing is a requirement for all businesses with a fire alarm system. To be legally compliant, your fire alarm system must have a weekly fire alarm test. To minimise disruption, we can perform the fire alarm test at night.
Keyholding
A keyholding service is a professional security solution where your property keys are securely stored by an accredited security provider. If an alarm is triggered or an emergency occurs, trained SIA licensed security officers attend your premises, investigate the situation, liaise with the police if required, and ensure your property is safe and secure without requiring you or your staff to respond.
With over 30 years of experience, City Keyholding provides trusted keyholding and alarm response services for businesses across the UK. Available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, our professional security officers deliver rapid response, expert incident management, and complete peace of mind whenever your property needs protecting.
Alarm response
Round the clock rapid response to all alarm activations at your property.
We can also tailor our response to meet your unique security needs – possibly limiting our response to a specific time window, or only responding to specific types of alarm activations.
Click here to find out more about what happens when your alarm activates.
Mobile patrols
Mobile patrols are a great way to prevent unwanted attention at your premises. They are a fraction of the cost of providing a full-time security guard. They can be quickly scaled up or down to meet your exact needs. You can specify the timing, frequency, route and even ask us to turn off the lights, water the plants, or pick-up the post.
Locks and unlocks
Locking up a property is no longer about simply locking a door. There’s usually a complete process that needs to be followed to ensure your property is totally secure. We can take care of every aspect of your property lock down. We will perform all of the necessary checks before locking your property. This can include closing all windows and doors, turning off lights, checking gates and perimeters before finally setting the alarm and locking up. As a result, when you arrive in the morning, your property will be open and ready for you to start your day without any delays.
- Staff can start and finish work at their usual times
- Your property will be fully locked down overnight, once late workers and cleaners have left
- Your property will be opened and ready for you before everyone arrives
- Vulnerable areas will be checked; windows, doors and fire exits
Third party access visits
Third party access visits When you can’t be there yourself, we can let authorised third parties into your property. A really useful service if you need to give access to a tradesman or if you are expecting an important delivery that you don’t want to miss. We can give authorised third parties access and wait until they are finished, or come back at a pre-arranged time and secure the property.
House checks
You want to be assured that your property is safe and sound when you’re away for a period of time on holiday or business trips. Furthermore, our house checks can be tailored to include whatever you, or your insurance company need.
Our house checks can include:
- Inspecting the general condition of the exterior and interior
- Checking for water leaks and water damage
- Checking for fire and electrical hazards
- Running taps and flushing the loos
- Removing junk mail from the front entrance
- Taking meter readings
- Picking up your post and if requested, forwarding it
We can also supply you with a full report and photographs after each visit.
Empty property checks
Empty property checks More and more insurance companies are making empty property checks a requirement in line with the terms of their policies. It’s also recognised that empty properties represent an easy target for vandals, thieves, arsonists and squatters.
Our empty property checks can include:
- Inspecting the general condition of the exterior and interior
- Looking for evidence of graffiti and vandalism
- Checking for water leaks and water damage
- Looking for fire and electrical hazards
- Taking meter readings
We can also supply you with a full report and photographs after each visit.
Security guards
City Keyholding’s Security Guards protect your people, property and assets by providing a visible, professional presence on site. Their presence can deter theft, vandalism, trespass and anti-social behaviour, while also ensuring that any incidents are identified and dealt with quickly.
Beyond security, our Security Guards can also control access, monitor activity, support site safety and provide reassurance to staff, visitors and customers. In short, they help reduce risk, strengthen security and give you greater peace of mind.
Ready to take the next step?
If you’re still undecided, we can put you in touch with like-minded customers that have similar properties to you. That way you can really check us out before you make the final leap of faith.
Your keys • Our care
Latest news
Help and Advice
You’ll find answers to the most frequently asked questions right here. If there’s something that we haven’t covered, get in touch.
A keyholding service involves securely storing your property keys with a professional security provider, allowing them to respond quickly to alarm activations or emergencies.
An alarm response service ensures that trained security personnel attend your property when an alarm is triggered, assess the situation, and take appropriate action to secure the premises.
Together, keyholding and alarm response services provide a reliable and professional way to protect your property without requiring you to attend incidents yourself.
We regularly welcome customers who have switched from unreliable or underperforming keyholding companies. We understand that switching providers can feel like a leap of faith, especially it you've had a poor experience before.
To help you make a confident decision, we're happy to connect you with existing clients who have similar properties to yours. This allows you to properly assess our keyholding and alarm response service before making the move.
Our standard keyholding contract is 12 months. However, we also otter flexible rolling monthly agreements tor certain types of premises.
This allows you to choose a structure that suits your operational needs while still benefiting from a professional and reliable security service.
We recommend carrying out a site survey before activating any keyholding or alarm response service. This ensures we have all the critical information needed to respond effectively to any incident.
Once the survey is complete, we can usually activate your service within a few hours. Unlike some providers, we do not charge for site surveys.
We believe in being completely transparent. No keyholding company can genuinely guarantee a fixed response time due to external factors such as traffic, weather conditions, and incident volume.
What we do instead is continuously monitor and optimise our response performance. We also prioritise incidents intelligently, attending high-risk situations like break-ins ahead of lower-priority faults.
Be cautious of companies promising fixed response times, as this is often unrealistic
Yes, absolutely. Our service is fully flexible and can be tailored to your specific requirements.
You can define time windows for responses or limit attendance to certain types of alarm activations. This ensures your security solution is both effective and aligned with how your property operates.
If your property is compromised, we can arrange immediate support through trusted boarding-up contractors.
Our response team will remain on-site until the property is fully secured, ensuring there are no vulnerabilities left unattended.
The most common method is during the site survey, where we securely collect your keys. You can also:
- Send keys via recorded delivery
- Arrange a courier
- Request a secure collection from our team
We'll guide you through the safest and most convenient option.
Remote keyholding means we contact you before attending an alarm activation when it's likely someone is on-site (typically during working hours).
This helps avoid unnecessary callouts. Unlike some providers who charge extra for this service, we include it as part of our standard offering.
Yes, absolutely. We provide professional keyholding and alarm response services across the UK.
We support businesses with single or multiple locations, delivering consistent and reliable security coverage nationwide through our network.
We provide nationwide coverage across England, Scotland, and Wales.
Our keyholding and alarm response services are available throughout the UK. Please get in touch to confirm your specific location.
Yes. Our alarm response service is available across the UK, not just in London.
We regularly support clients with properties in multiple regions, ensuring consistent service standards regardless of location