Understanding the UK Cyber Security & Resilience Bill: What It Means for 2026 and Beyond

Article

Publish Date:

27 January 2026

The UK Government is entering a new era of cyber regulation. Cyber threats are intensifying and recent attacks have caused serious disruption across public and private sectors. The new Cyber Security and Resilience Bill signals a shift from voluntary best practice to mandatory cyber resilience.

The Bill is designed to strengthen essential services, protect national security, and update the UK’s ageing NIS Regulations (2018) to keep pace with modern cyber risks. Full implementation is anticipated after Royal Assent, expected in 2026, pending the bill’s progression beyond its current committee stage and the development of secondary legislation and regulator guidance.

Why Is This Bill Needed?

Cyber threats have accelerated dramatically, for example:

204 nationally significant cyber incidents were recorded by the NCSC in the year to August 2025, a 130% year on year increase.
The Synnovis ransomware attack disrupted NHS pathology services, leading to over 10,000 cancelled outpatient appointments and critical care delays.
Attacks against European energy providers caused operational shutdowns, highlighting vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure.

The Government has made cyber resilience a national priority. Services such as healthcare, water, energy, and digital infrastructure are now too essential, and too interconnected, to remain exposed to preventable disruption.

What the Bill Does: Key Changes

Expands Who Falls Within Regulation

The Bill significantly widens the regulatory net to reflect modern supply chain risk. This aligns the UK more closely with the EU’s NIS2 Directive, while retaining UK specific flexibility.

Tougher Incident Reporting Requirements

Under the new bill, businesses must notify regulators within 24 hours of a significant incident and provide a full report within 72 hours.

Stronger Security Standards

Organisations must maintain security measures that are:

“Appropriate, proportionate, and up to date,” and
Measurable against the NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF).

The CAF now becomes the expected standard for demonstrating compliance.

Expanded Regulator Powers

Regulators (such as the ICO, Ofcom, or sector bodies) will have powers to:

Designate critical suppliers.
Issue enforcement notices and conduct inspections.
Direct organisations to take specific actions where national security risks arise.

Tougher Penalties

Non‑compliance can result in fines of up to £17 million, or 4% of global annual turnover.

How to Prepare

Review and update incident response plans

Ensure you can meet both the 24-hour initial report and 72-hour full notification requirement by incorporating reporting into your incident response plan.

Strengthen supply chain assurance

Assess whether you could be designated a critical supplier, or whether your suppliers could endanger your cyber readiness. Review contracts, access models, and due diligence processes.

Align with the NCSC CAF

Map your controls to CAF principles and identify gaps around governance, risk management, asset control, and resilience.

Test resilience scenarios

Conduct tabletop exercises for ransomware, data centre outages, MSP compromise, and cascading supply chain failures.

Take Action Now

This Bill represents a major step change in UK cyber regulation, and the expectation is clear: resilience is no longer optional. Start preparing now.