In the broadest sense, locksmiths are people whose trade is principally concerned with the installation, maintenance and repair of access prevention hardware. This hardware may be of the traditional, mechanical sort such as deadbolts, master key systems and car locks or it may be electronic equipment such as CCTV systems, biometric access control devices and electronic locking hardware.

Locksmiths incorporate the skills of a carpenter, mechanic, machinist and security expert during the course of their work. There is a subset of locksmith skills that has always garnered a great deal of interest from the public at large: defeating locks! Locksmiths study how various locking devices work and, through that study, they learn how to defeat those locking mechanisms. These are the most closely-guarded trade secrets among locksmiths. The knowledge possessed by even apprentice locksmiths is enough to defeat most common security measures. For this reason, locksmiths are typically rigorously screened by their mentors before they’re offered an apprenticeship.