Cybersecurity & Information Assurance
A Growing Market Where Spend and Protection Are Hard to Compare
UK cyber security sector revenue is estimated at £14.7bn, up 11%, across 2,603 firms. The public sector is a growing buyer: 967 UK public sector cyber contracts were awarded in 2025, with awarded value up 62% on 2024, which works out at about £1.5bn. These are contract awards, not cash spent in the year. For buyers, the difficulty is comparison. Tools, managed services and independent assurance are bought through different routes, priced on different measures, and judged by outcomes that are largely invisible when they work.
Briefings in this market are in preparation
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What our briefings cover
Security Operations. Managed Detection and Response (MDR), Security Operations Centres (SOC), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms, and cyber recovery and incident-response services.
Identity and Access. Single sign-on, Privileged Access Management (PAM), multi-factor authentication and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
Endpoint, Network and Data Protection. Extended Detection and Response (XDR), next-generation firewalls, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), data loss prevention and encryption key management.
Assurance and Third-Party Risk. IT Health Checks (ITHC), CREST-accredited penetration testing (CREST is the industry body that sets testing standards), Cyber Essentials Plus and ISO 27001 certification, and supply chain cyber risk monitoring.
The commercial reality: platform or specialist
A single-vendor platform and a set of specialist products carry different integration effort, data charges and skills demands. Many contracts are priced on data volume or user numbers, scope definitions for managed services differ between providers, and renewals can bring changes of tier. Large firms earn about 70% of sector revenue, and the market is consolidating.
Regulation is moving faster than most procurement cycles, and our briefings follow it: the incoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, public sector frameworks and dynamic purchasing systems (flexible supplier lists that firms can join over time), and the role of cyber insurance. The supplier side is consolidating just as quickly. In September 2026 Edinburgh-based Quorum Cyber agreed to acquire Ontinue, one of 39 cybersecurity deals announced that month, according to SecurityWeek. We ask what such activity does to choice, pricing and the cost of rebuilding a security stack.
Last updated by Ajay Channana for Ipso Facto on 16 October 2026