Our 8 security and compliance predictions for 2026

It’s been an exciting year for TMW Resilience and as the dust settles on 2025, I thought now would be a good time to take a look at what I think will be impacting our sector in the coming year.

In short, 2026 will not simply extend the patterns we saw in 2024 and 2025. I believe it will be the year organisations finally recognise that cyber security, resilience, and compliance are not separate disciplines, instead they are the foundations of ‘digital trust’.

And that trust will fast become the currency of the digital economy.

So with that in mind, here are my predictions for 2026…

1. Organisations will create their own unified Cyber Resilience Framework

With so many multiple regulatory regimes emerging – the EU Cyber Resilience Act, the UK Cyber Resilience Bill, NIS2, ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials+, 2026 will be the year that organisations stop treating them as isolated requirements.

Instead, I believe that many will move to operating against a single internal resilience benchmark, harmonising controls across all frameworks to create one coherent operating model.

This shift won’t be driven by governments, but by procurement pressure, client expectations, and the need for consistency across markets. Organisations that do this early will reduce cost, simplify compliance, and strengthen their digital resilience.

2. Boards will prioritise resilience over security

In 2026, I see the question from boards shifting decisively from: “Are we secure?” to “How resilient are we?”. With the key challenge for security teams being able to demonstrate, not just claim, organisational robustness, including:

• How quickly the organisation can detect threats

• How quickly it can recover

• Pinpointing which services are truly critical

They will also need to be clear on how resilience is tested and evidenced, as well as how cyber risk will integrate with business continuity and operational risk.

By taking this approach, we will see a new level of security maturity emerge: Board-Level Resilience Assurance, with ‘resilience’ moving from a technology conversation to a leadership one.

3. AI Governance will become a core component of Cyber Assurance

AI adoption exploded in 2025 and with it reshaped operational risk. 2026 will be the year organisations’ security policies finally catch up with AI adoption, as many firms move to embed AI governance directly into their cyber-resilience frameworks.

Expect to see:

• Formal inventories of AI systems

• Defined assurance for AI outputs

• Documentation of data lineage and model risks

• Alignment with ISO 42001 for credible governance

• Integration of AI controls into risk registers and audits

AI governance will be viewed not as an innovation overhead, but as a trust requirement – especially where AI systems are being used to support regulated services or influence decisions affecting customers.

4. Supplier assurance will become the fastest-growing compliance priority

The weakest link in any organisation is no longer inside the perimeter – it is everywhere in the digital supply chain. Next year, I have no doubt supplier assurance will accelerate rapidly and I expect:

• Risk scoring of suppliers to become standard

• Cyber Essentials+ or equivalent to become a bidding prerequisite

• Rapid expansion of Software Bills of Materials (SBOM) disclosure across more industries

• A shift from annual questionnaires to continuous supplier monitoring

Suppliers should be prepared to move from “trust us” claims to evidence-based assurance for their clients and in turn they will be rewarded with favourable positioning when it comes to procurement decisions.

5. Continuous controls monitoring will overtake traditional compliance audits

Near real-time assurance will take centre stage in 2026, as annual audits will increasingly be seen as insufficient indicators of risk posture. Organisations will instead move to adopting continuous controls monitoring (CCM) across: 

• Access

• Identity management

• Patch and vulnerability status

• Configuration drift

• Privacy and data protection

• AI usage and guardrails

This shift reflects a broader truth, that true resilience requires ongoing visibility, not retrospective snapshots and therefore I expect CCM to be the norm next year for organisations in regulated sectors or complex supply chains. 

6. Business Resilience and Cyber Resilience will fully converge

The separation between cyber incident response, crisis management, and business continuity has always been artificial. Therefore, in 2026, I predict that these silos will start to dissolve and we will quickly see:

• Unified resilience leadership roles

• Integrated scenario exercises combining technical and operational failure

• Joint crisis communications and IR functions

• Alignment of cyber, data protection, and operational resilience metrics

• Resilience capabilities designed into service delivery, not bolted on

These changes will contribute to the rise of Integrated Digital Resilience – a model where resilience is both operational and cultural.

7. Mid-Market organisations will become the centre of regulatory and procurement scrutiny

Large enterprises are already under intense compliance pressure and next year I see this extending to the mid-market as well – especially those operating in health, education, logistics, defence supply chains, fintech, and AI-enabled SaaS.

Why? Because they hold critical data, deliver essential services, and form indispensable links in national and sector-wide supply chains. And as such more contracts, regulators, and industry bodies will require mid-market suppliers to demonstrate enterprise-grade resilience in 2026 – even if they lack enterprise-scale budgets.

8. Digital trust will become quantifiable

In 2026, I believe we will see ‘trust’ shift from an intangible value to a demonstrative capability. This means that organisations will need to start evidencing that their customers and clients can trust them with their data. Expect this to be demonstrated by the following:

• Transparency and explainability appropriate to risk

• Evidence of compliance through documented controls

• Resilience maturity scores

• Supplier risk ratings

• Publication of performance monitoring of AI systems and controls scores

• Depth of governance evidence

I predict we will see these trust indicators in procurement packs, board reports, and investor due diligence as trust stops being a narrative claim and becomes a measurable outcome.

Summary: Resilience becomes the competitive advantage in 2026

The organisations that win in 2026 won’t be the ones with the most tools – they’ll be the ones that move early and embed resilience into everything they do. They will:

• Build resilience into culture

• Treat governance as an enabler

• Demonstrate transparency and accountability

• Use trust as a strategic advantage

• Provide evidence of operational strength

• Unite cyber, AI, and business resilience

Next year resilience will shift from a compliance task to a true growth strategy. Those who act early will earn trust, win clients, and lead the market.