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Access control installation.
Card, fob and phone access for offices, industrial units and blocks of flats, installed by our engineers from St Albans to the City of London.
Access control lets the right people through the right doors, with a fob, a card or a phone, and keeps everyone else out. We install and maintain it for offices, industrial units, schools and blocks of flats from our base in St Albans, across Hertfordshire and London. We do the whole physical job: locks, readers, controllers, power, cabling and testing.
What we install
- Card, fob and phone readers at entrances, comms rooms, offices and stairs.
- Maglocks and electric strikes, chosen to suit the door: timber, glass, aluminium or steel.
- Door controllers, fitted near the doors in risers, cupboards or comms rooms, each with a battery backup.
- Press-to-exit buttons and green break-glass units so people can always get out.
- Cat6 network cabling from each controller back to your comms cabinet, tested and labelled.
- Takeovers and repairs of existing systems, including Paxton, and maglocks that have stopped holding.
For cloud-managed systems, our group company SEGcore, a Verkada Gold Partner, designs and supports the system, and we install it. Not sure which system suits you? Read Paxton vs Salto vs Verkada.
Example: a City of London office, December 2025
A new office near Fenchurch Street wanted card access on the main entrance and the comms room. Our engineers Tom and Josh:
- Fitted a compact maglock to the stainless steel entrance door, drilling and tapping threads so the bracket was held securely.
- Modified the reader’s backing plate so it sat flush on the marble wall, then fitted the press-to-exit button.
- Swapped the switched spur feeding the controller for an unswitched one, so nobody can turn the doors off by accident, and labelled it.
- Tested the network cable and patched it into the comms cabinet port the client’s IT team asked for.
- Made good the holes left by the old, bigger power supply, dated the backup battery, and left both areas clean.
Example: 12 doors across an office in St James’s, 2026
For a firm in St James’s, London, we started with the two comms rooms in January 2026 and came back in August to add access control to 12 doors across two floors.
- Lifted ceiling tiles to run the cables above the offices, supported on metal fixings rather than plastic ties.
- Fitted four door controllers and connected every reader and lock.
- Labelled every controller, every door port and the patch panel, so whoever maintains it next knows what goes where.
Blocks of flats and housing
For housing associations we replace and repair maglocks on communal entrances, and add fob readers where residents need them. In 2025 and 2026 we replaced the maglocks on the main entrances of several blocks with Securitron M32 locks. The bigger lock on the original spec would have meant cutting into the steel door frames, so we chose one that fitted the existing space.
A maglock that won’t hold isn’t always electrical. On two call-outs in Stevenage the lock was fine and the door simply wasn’t closing square: one had a loose fixing, the other needed the door adjusting. We test the lock, the power and the door before replacing anything.
See also door entry systems and block and estate managers.
Access control and fire safety
A locked door must never stop people getting out. Doors on escape routes are set to release when the fire alarm goes off and if the power fails, with a green break-glass unit beside them and a press-to-exit button on the inside. We check how your fire alarm and doors work together before we fit anything.
Maintenance
We look after systems we didn’t install, too: repairing maglocks, replacing readers, swapping tired batteries and tidying old wiring. Access control can sit in a maintenance contract alongside your CCTV, fire alarm and emergency lighting.
Related: CCTV, data cabling and commercial electrician in London.
Questions we’re asked
How much does access control cost?
It depends on the number of doors, the type of door and lock, how far the cables run and which system you choose. We survey first and give you a fixed quote per door, with the cabling and testing included.
Can you fit access control to glass doors?
Yes. Glass and aluminium doors usually take a maglock on the frame with a bracket, and we choose the bracket and lock to suit the door. In a City of London office we fitted a compact maglock to a stainless steel entrance door with a custom-fixed bracket.
Will the doors open in a fire or a power cut?
Doors on escape routes are set to release when the fire alarm activates and if the power fails, and each has a green break-glass and a press-to-exit button. We check the link with your fire alarm as part of the job.
Can you take over or repair an existing system?
Yes. We repair maglocks and readers on existing systems, including Paxton, and take over the running of existing cloud-managed systems.
Do you install Verkada access control?
Yes. Our group company SEGcore is a Verkada Gold Partner and designs and supports Verkada systems; SEG installs the locks, readers, controllers and cabling.
Do you cover St Albans and London?
Yes. We are based in St Albans and install access control across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and London, including the City and the West End.
Written by SEGplc. Last updated 21 October 2026.
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