A Symbiant perspective: from oversight to advantage
Compliance Statistics & Trends to Know for 2026
Understanding the current risk and compliance landscape is no longer the responsibility of just one team like IT or legal. It’s now a strategic driver of growth, resilience, and trust. Senior leaders see it as a route to winning new business, unlocking markets, and proving that the organisation can be trusted with sensitive data and public money.
Award-Winning GRC & Audit Software,
Trusted Since 1999 by
Executive summary
Navigating 2026 Compliance Challenges With Symbiant GRC Software
Compliance in 2026 is more complex, higher-stakes, and more strategic than ever. The data shows rising audit cadence, increasing regulatory pressure, costly non-compliance, and growing expectations around AI governance and third-party oversight. At the same time, many organisations are still relying on spreadsheets and fragmented data, making it difficult to keep pace.
This page brings together the key compliance statistics and trends for 2026—and what they mean for your programme.
For organisations looking to modernise, Symbiant provides a modular, affordable GRC and audit platform (from £100 per module per month with unlimited users) that replaces manual processes with connected, automated workflows. Risks, controls, incidents, audits, complaints, DPIAs, due diligence and actions all link seamlessly, giving you a single source of truth and audit-ready evidence.
The takeaway is simple: compliance is getting harder, but with the right platform, it becomes easier to manage, easier to evidence, and far more effective. Symbiant helps you turn 2026’s challenges into a controlled, transparent and strategic compliance environment.
Compliance Snapshot
Key Compliance Findings for 2026 and What They Mean for Your Organisation
Recent research from Navex, PwC, IBM, the World Economic Forum and others shows:
77% of C-suite leaders say compliance contributes significantly or moderately to company objectives.
Breaches involving non-compliance with regulations cost $4.61M on average and almost $174K more per incident.
A majority of organisations now conduct 4+ audits per year, with enterprises often doing 6 or more.
AI, regulatory change and third-party risk are now central themes in compliance planning—not niche topics.
On this page, we’ll unpack the headline compliance statistics and trends for 2026 and show how organisations can respond using modern, modular GRC and audit software like Symbiant.
Compliance as a growth lever
77% of global C-suite leaders say compliance significantly or moderately contributes to overall objectives.
Increasing revenue and winning new clients is now a top driver behind compliance programmes, especially for larger enterprises.
Rising complexity & cost of non-compliance
85% of executives say compliance requirements have become more complex in the last three years.
Breaches with a non-compliance factor cost more and take longer to manage.
Audit cadence is accelerating
92% of organisations conduct at least two audits per year; 58% conduct four or more.
35% of enterprises conduct six or more audits or assessments per year.
Technology and AI are reshaping compliance
2025 is the first year a majority of organisations use purpose-built tech to administer ethics and compliance programmes.
Around 65–80% of professionals expect AI to have a high or transformational impact on their work within five years.
Third-party risk and vendor compliance are under the spotlight
Nearly half of CISOs say ensuring third-party compliance with security requirements is now their main challenge in implementing cyber regulations.
Only around one-third use truly risk-weighted methods in third-party screening.
GRC & Risk management in 2026
At a glance: Key compliance statistics for 2026
The latest 2026 compliance data reveals a landscape that is more complex, more regulated, and more technologically driven than ever. From rising audit volumes and escalating breach costs to AI governance and third-party risk, these headline statistics highlight where organisations must focus to stay compliant, competitive, and audit-ready. Use this snapshot to brief leaders and shape a stronger, more resilient compliance strategy for 2026.
How Symbiant fits this picture
Symbiant gives organisations a true Single Source of Truth (SSOT) for governance, risk, compliance and audit, replacing scattered spreadsheets with connected, audit-ready data. Every module works together, breaking down silos, improving visibility, and making accountability clear across the entire business. Symbiant gives you:
A central Incident Reporter module to log, track and analyse incidents, link them directly to risks and controls, and trigger reviews and remedial action plans.
Complaints and SHE modules to capture complaints and SHE-related incidents with over 200 data points where needed, plus clear action tracking and evidence trails.
Monitoring Action Tracker to manage issues and remedial actions from compliance, management, or regulatory audits in one tamper-proof system.
GRC & Risk management in 2026
The current state of compliance in 2026
GRC is taking centre stage in 2026.
Risk and compliance teams are no longer seen as protectors of value — they’re becoming enablers of resilience, trust, and sustainable growth.
Driving this shift is a tougher regulatory climate, rising cyber and third-party exposure, and the growing demand for connected, real-time governance.
Across Europe, frameworks such as DORA, NIS2, CSRD, CSDDD, and the AI Act are setting new expectations for operational resilience, data integrity, and accountability:
Strategic relevance
Around 69% of risk and compliance professionals say staying compliant with relevant laws, policies, and regulations is one of the most important factors in organisational decision-making.
Over three-quarters of C-suite leaders now see compliance as actively supporting business objectives—not just preventing fines.
New priorities
Cybersecurity, data protection, and privacy consistently feature as top priorities.
Increasingly, revenue, client acquisition and market access are cited as drivers behind compliance programmes—not only regulatory pressure.
Organisational location of compliance
Compliance functions are often independent reporting to the CEO/Board, or distributed across Legal, Risk, IT, HR, and Internal Audit, reflecting its cross-cutting nature.
AI risk and visibility gaps
Roughly two-thirds of risk and compliance professionals are most concerned about:
- Lack of visibility to risks across the organisation
- Gaps in implementation of compliance controls, especially around AI use
Missed regulatory change around AI is emerging as a distinct risk category.
How Symbiant supports modern audit teams
Symbiant’s audit management modules are designed for this new reality:
Audit Universe – A central repository for all audit entities, with visibility on scope, estimated days, and previous results, plus the ability to link audits to risks.
Audit Working Papers – An electronic folder for everything relating to an audit (scope, timing, test results, documentation, linked risks, controls and incidents) with one-click audit reports.
- Audit Action Tracker – To give ownership of remedial actions, track due dates and progress, and notify users automatically about what needs to be done.
- Questionnaires, Surveys and Assessments – To build dynamic, rules-based questionnaires and audit tests that adapt to responses and gather deeper evidence.
This helps internal and external audit teams keep up with increasing audit cadence without disproportionate increases in headcount or stress.
GRC & Risk management in 2026
Compliance audit frequency, costs, and trends
Audit management is becoming more intense and more expensive:
Audit frequency is rising
- 92% of organisations conduct at least two audits/assessments per year.
- 58% conduct four or more, and 35% of enterprises carry out six or more annually.
- ISO 27001 adoption continues to climb, with around 80%+ of organisations reporting current or planned certification.
Audit costs are significant
- A majority of enterprises spend over $100,000 per year on audits alone.
- Organisations now look for rigour and depth (number of controls tested, length/detail of reports) as key markers of audit quality.
AI audits on the horizon
- Around 53% of organisations plan to pursue an AI audit or certification within 12 months, and more than three-quarters within two years.
Symbiant: Reducing friction and manual effort
Symbiant is designed to help compliance teams work smarter with existing headcount:
Questionnaires & Assessments support dynamic assessments across risks, controls, DPIAs, ISQM, due diligence and more, with scheduled issuing and response history.
Document Management provides a SSOT for policies, procedures and records, with approval workflows and interlinked documents, reducing duplicate and outdated files.
Action trackers (Risk, Audit, Monitoring & Governance) create a consistent way to track, escalate and resolve actions across the organisation.
GRC & Risk management in 2026
Compliance management, maturity, and operating models
The data shows that many compliance programmes are maturing—but still under pressure.
Programme maturity
Around 57% of risk and compliance professionals describe their programme as “managing” or “optimising”, the two highest maturity tiers.
Only around 6% say their programme is underdeveloped, though that number has been stubbornly consistent for several years.
Change drivers
In response to policy and enforcement shifts, organisations are most likely to adjust:
- Policies
- Risk assessment
- Training plans and priorities
Many are not increasing staffing, which means teams must deliver more with the same resources.
Data & reporting challenges
63% of executives say the complex and fragmented nature of data across the organisation makes compliance harder.
Time-consuming reporting tasks are seen as one of the top constraints preventing enabling functions (like compliance and internal audit) from contributing more strategically.
Compliance Technology, Automation & AI
How Technology, Automation and AI Are Transforming Compliance — and Where Symbiant Fits In
Compliance teams are rapidly moving away from spreadsheets as organisations invest in purpose-built tools, automation and AI to keep pace with rising regulatory demands. The latest data shows a clear shift toward technology-led compliance: faster reporting, better visibility, and stronger risk oversight. This section breaks down the key trends—and explains how Symbiant’s automated, modular GRC and audit platform helps you adapt with confidence.
Compliance tools, automation, and AI
The statistics show a clear trajectory away from manual, spreadsheet-driven compliance:
A majority now use purpose-built technology for key programme aspects such as:
- Ethics and compliance training
- Policy and procedure management
- Hotline and incident management
- Risk assessment and management
- Investment and benefits
- Over 80% of companies plan to invest more in technology to drive compliance.
Organisations that invest in compliance technology report:
- Better visibility of risks and risk management activities
- Faster identification and response to compliance issues
- Higher-quality reporting and faster decision-making
- Productivity gains and cost savings
AI adoption & perception
- Around 65% of risk and compliance professionals say AI is important to their compliance programme.
- 70–80% of professionals expect AI to have a major impact on their function within five years, but less than one in five say they currently have a fully formed AI strategy.
Symbiant’s assisted approach
Symbiant’s platform is built around automation and assisted intelligence, helping to:
- Automate notifications, reminders and escalations when risk scores change, deadlines approach, or actions become overdue.
- Remove manual work around evidence collection, action tracking, and cross-module linking (e.g., connecting incidents to risks and controls).
- Support human decision-making with connected data across risk, compliance and audit modules, while keeping people firmly in control.
Vendor compliance and third-party risk
Third-party ecosystems are one of the weakest links in many compliance programmes:
Almost half of CISOs say ensuring third-party compliance with security requirements is their main challenge in applying cyber regulations.
Around 18% of organisations have experienced third-party ethics or compliance failures.
More than three-quarters of executives report that rising compliance complexity has negatively impacted their ability to establish and maintain third-party relationships.
Only around one-third of organisations use truly risk-weighted approaches when screening third parties, leaving blind spots.
How Symbiant helps strengthen supplier and vendor oversight
Symbiant supports third-party risk workflows through:
- Due Diligence module – To perform structured assessments of external companies such as suppliers, generate risk scores, and quantify potential business impact.
- DPIA module – To evaluate data protection and privacy risks linked to assets or contractors using premade assessments and real-time risk scoring.
- Incident Reporter, Complaints and Action Trackers – To capture supplier-related incidents, attach evidence, and ensure follow-up actions are logged, tracked and completed.
Together, these tools help you build a more consistent, auditable third-party oversight process—without endless spreadsheet trackers.
Compliance trends to watch in 2026
Looking ahead, several themes stand out:
Compliance as a top strategic priority
The proportion of executives naming regulatory compliance as a top strategic priority has jumped dramatically year-on-year.
Compliance is increasingly involved in digital transformation, product launches, and strategic risk decisions.
AI governance and AI audits
A majority of organisations plan to pursue AI audits or certifications within the next two years.
AI skills are seen as one of the biggest emerging skills gaps in compliance, alongside data management and technology capabilities.
ESG and sustainability
A sizeable share of professionals believe the focus on ESG and sustainability will have a high or transformational impact on their work over the next five years.
Many organisations face complex and evolving ESG regulations and reporting expectations.
Continuous regulatory change
Most professionals expect the speed and volume of regulatory change to have a high impact on their workload.
Many still rely on manual monitoring of regulatory developments, which is time-consuming and difficult to scale.
From “check-the-box” to connected risk
When you look back at statistics from 2023–2025, you can see a clear trajectory:
Away from manual, standalone spreadsheets
Towards connected, technology-enabled risk and compliance ecosystems
With growing expectations that compliance will help protect and enable organisational objectives, not just prevent fines.
What these compliance statistics mean for your organisation (and how Symbiant helps)
The numbers all point in the same direction:
Compliance is getting more complex, more strategic—and more intertwined with risk and audit than ever.
To keep up in 2026 and beyond, most organisations will need to:
Standardise and centralise risk & compliance data
Move away from scattered spreadsheets to a Single Source of Truth for risks, controls, incidents, audits, complaints, due diligence, and actions.
Symbiant does this through a modular yet tightly integrated platform that covers risk, audit, compliance and governance in one place.
Automate workflows and reminders wherever possible
Use automation for notifications, escalations, task tracking, and follow-ups so teams can focus on value-adding work.
Symbiant’s automation capabilities keep people informed when scores change, deadlines approach, or new incidents and actions appear.
Connect risk, compliance, and audit processes
Ensure incidents feed into risk registers and controls, audits feed into action trackers, and assessments inform risk appetite and treatment.
Symbiant’s modules are designed to link to each other so you can follow the thread from risk, to incident, to control, to audit, to action—without leaving the system.
Strengthen third-party oversight and data protection
Use structured due diligence, DPIAs, and ongoing monitoring instead of ad-hoc questionnaires and emails.
Symbiant’s Due Diligence, DPIA, Incident Reporter and Action Tracker modules make this manageable and fully auditable.
Plan for AI governance and emerging regulations
Build AI into your risk assessments, training, and governance, and involve compliance early.
Symbiant’s flexible risk, questionnaire and document management modules help capture AI risks, policies and assessments alongside everything else.
Why Symbiant
Why organisations choose Symbiant to modernise compliance
Symbiant has been supporting risk, compliance and audit functions for over 26 years, helping businesses, charities and government bodies modernise and consolidate their GRC functions.
Key reasons organisations choose Symbiant:
Modular, mix-and-match design – Start with the modules you need (e.g., Risk Registers, Monitoring Action Tracker, Complaints, DPIA, Audit Working Papers, Due Diligence) and expand over time.
Simple, transparent licensing – Each module is £100 per month* with unlimited access for all active users; you pay only for the modules and seat numbers you require, with no hidden fees.
Highly flexible and customisable – Tailor layouts, data forms, roles, permissions and dashboards to match your existing processes instead of forcing a rigid template.
Hover to Explore our Solutions.
Symbiant
All-in-One GRC & Audit
Management Powerhouse
Symbiant’s flexible, modular platform streamlines governance, risk, compliance, and audit—so you can reduce complexity, adapt fast, and stay focused on achieving your objectives.
Our Solution at a Glance:
Risk Management Software
The Symbiant Risk Management Software module enables organisations to identify, understand, and manage risks with ease and efficiency. It provides a streamlined approach to monitoring, assessing, and mitigating risks, ensuring informed decisions and compliance.
AI-Powered Assistant
Symbiant AI connects data across your organisation, delivering actionable insights and seamless workflows. From logical, data-driven risk scoring to uncovering root causes and predicting the domino effect of control failures, Symbiant AI empowers smarter, faster decisions. Eliminate duplicate risks in seconds, refine controls, identify emerging risks, and so much more—all tailored to your business.
Audit Management Software
The Symbiant Audit Management Software module streamlines audit planning, action tracking, and time management. It automatically pulls relevant data, allows easy report customisation, and generates professional audit reports.
Risk Management Software
The Symbiant Risk Management Software module enables organisations to identify, understand, and manage risks with ease and efficiency. It provides a streamlined approach to monitoring, assessing, and mitigating risks, ensuring informed decisions and compliance.
AI-Powered Assistant
Symbiant AI connects data across your organisation, delivering actionable insights and seamless workflows. From logical, data-driven risk scoring to uncovering root causes and predicting the domino effect of control failures, Symbiant AI empowers smarter, faster decisions. Eliminate duplicate risks in seconds, refine controls, identify emerging risks, and so much more—all tailored to your business.
Audit Management Software
The Symbiant Audit Management Software module streamlines audit planning, action tracking, and time management. It automatically pulls relevant data, allows easy report customisation, and generates professional audit reports.