Allied Detectives is a partnership of Agencies who use sub-contractors through an internal approval scheme.

Our Approved Agents application is here http://www.allied-detectives.co.uk/Join-Us.html

Many investigation agencies you will find are very small and are either one man bands or partnerships. Work is usually gained on your postcode area and your particular field of experise. To break in to the industry through ad-hoc work try joining the free networking e-groups where agents give out (sub-contract) work that is too far away for them or outside their own expertise.

Each group is free to join as long as you can meet the membership criteria.

UKPIN http://www.ukpin.com/join.html

UKPSN http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/ukpsn/

British Agents http://www.britishagents.com/

WAPI http://www.wapi.com/

Another useful tool is E-legal gathering where Pi’s can discuss business situations and marketing in a less formal way

http://www.e-legal-gathering.co.uk/forum/forum.php

It’s a group that is run and moderated by Allied Detectives and is as much a social forum as it is PI Business forum and contains many PI resources and templates that will assist you with your start-up. Membership is free to join and access to the closed areas are for trading PI’s only who are DPA registered. This is validated by the administrators.

You may also wish to join one (or more) of the industry associations which will also assist you with networking. These are WAPI, ABI and the IPI.