2026 will be another busy and demanding year for compliance professionals. They will continue to play a critical role within organisations, ensuring compliance, keeping track of regulatory changes, reducing risk, navigating emerging challenges, and more. But that task is not getting any easier, with most compliance professionals feeling their jobs are getting more difficult.
In 2026 technology will also continue to play a critical role in compliance and policy management with the use of automation, AI and more. The Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) tech space is mature with a lot of choice, with is great news for compliance teams. In particular, policy management software continues to add massive amounts of value, reducing risk and manual effort.
These compliance trends are reflected in various industry statistics that draw on the views of compliance professionals and demonstrate both their strategic importance and reliance on technology.
In this post we’ve gathered 15 essential policy management and compliance statistics for 2026, the large majority of which are from the past 12 months. Use these numbers to:
- help compliance and digital workplace teams plan how they can overcome challenges.
- spark useful conversations with business stakeholders.
- plan appropriate strategies and tactics to support compliance.
- insert into a business case for policy management software and other compliance solutions.
Ready to dive in? Here are 15 essential compliance and policy management statistics for 2026!
32% of compliance professionals say regulatory changes are their primary challenge
A survey of compliance professionals from Compliance Week found that “regulatory changes” was the most commonly mentioned ”top challenge”, reported by 32% of those responding to the survey.
85% of compliance leaders say requirements have become more complex
The latest PwC Global Compliance Survey suggests that 85% of compliance and governance leaders believe that compliance requirements have become more complex over the past three years.
92% of compliance professionals say their role has become harder
Research from Regology shows that 92% of compliance professionals report that their job has got more difficult, while 44% struggle to keep up with regulatory changes.
28% of organisations have experienced a cybersecurity or privacy breach in the last 3 years
Research from NAVEX reports that 28% of organisations have experienced a “privacy / cybersecurity breach” in the past three years, the most commonly reported type of compliance incident.
60% of compliance professionals expect compliance-related costs to rise
Cube’s annual Cost of Compliance Report 2025 (previously produced by Thomson Reuters) shows that 60% of compliance professionals expect the cost of compliance to rise in the next 12 months.
71% of organisations will undertake digital transformation needing help from the compliance team
According to PWC’s Global Compliance Survey for 2025, 71% of organisations expect to execute digital transformation within the next three years that will require support from the compliance team.
A third of compliance teams regard their own compliance programme as industry-leading
NAVEX’s State of Risk and Compliance Report suggests that 33% of compliance professionals believe their current compliance programme is “leading the industry” with a further 57% identifying it as being “middle of the pack”. Only 10% feel they are behind others in the industry.
64% of compliance teams say compliance technology provides better risk visibility
Most compliance teams report benefits from deploying compliance technology. According to PwC research, 64% say it provides better risk visibility, with 53% saying it offers faster and more proactive responses to compliance issues.
71% of compliance professionals are enthusiastic about using AI
Research from Regology suggests that 71% of compliance professionals are “enthusiastic” about AI and the market is responding to this opportunity.
98% of organisations are using some automation to drive compliance
Cube’s Cost of Compliance Report 2025 also finds that almost all (98%) of organisations have applied some automation to their regulatory compliance processes.
The policy management software market is growing by nearly 10% each year
According to Imarc Group, the policy management software market is set to grow to $USD 4.58 billion by 2033, with a CAGR of 9.87%.
68% of large organisations use policy management software
Market Growth reports that 68% of large enterprises use dedicated policy management software.
62% are using cloud-based policy management solutions rather than on-premises
Market Growth also says that of those organisations using policy management software, 62% use cloud-based solutions, with 38% using on-premises.
77% of organisations using a solution like Xoralia achieve attestation rates greater than 75%
Our own survey of Xoralia customers shows that 77% of organisations achieve employee attestation rates for their policies of greater than 75% when using Xoralia, while over 50% achieve above 90%. 27% of Xoralia customers achieve a rate of more than 95%.
Half of all organizations use employee training results to measure policy management effectiveness
According to NAVEX, 50% of organisations use employee training results to measure the effectiveness of policy management programmes. Correspondingly 43% use survey feedback and 38% measure improved efficiency in policy management tasks.
The importance of policy management and compliance solutions
So, the numbers are in! Overall, these statistics show:
- Compliance is getting more complex and expensive.
- The strategic importance of compliance professionals.
- The major contribution of technology to support compliance.
- The growth and value of policy management software.
Considering these numbers, solutions such as Xoralia look set to make a real difference in 2026, supporting compliance professionals in their everyday work while continuing to anchor approaches to regulatory compliance and policy management.
Why not arrange a free demo of Xoralia to see how it can help make your role easier in 2026?
Frequently asked questions
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About the author
Dan Hawtrey
CEO and product lead
Dan Hawtrey is CEO of Content Formula and the driving force behind Xoralia, a policy management platform built natively on Microsoft 365. Dan writes regularly on policy management, compliance, and the evolving role of AI in how organisations manage knowledge. His articles are grounded in real conversations with the companies and teams using Xoralia day to day.