Last year’s wave of high‑profile cyber incidents and FCA fines has shifted how senior leaders think about compliance training, with the majority of firms reporting their senior leaders are actively engaged in promoting compliance, according to a new report from Skillscast.

After surveying over 100 compliance and training specialists across the UK, Skillscast’s latest Annual Benchmarking Report shows a marked improvement in leaders’ attitudes toward regulatory obligations, with 70% of executives saying they champion them, compared with less than half in 2025.

According to the report, this shift reflects a growing recognition among firms that compliance cannot sit solely with risk and compliance teams, particularly under accountability-focused regimes such as SMCR and Consumer Duty, and requires an organisation-wide approach to ensure good practice across the business.

However, board-level engagement remains particularly uneven. Only around 40% of boards regularly participate in training or development, and only a third (32%) have compliance committees, raising concerns about whether tone from the top is consistently reinforced.

“Compared to 2025, it’s encouraging to see a clear increase in senior management engagement with compliance. That shift matters because visible leadership support is one of the strongest drivers of culture, accountability and sustained progress,” said Vivek Dodd, Skillscast CEO. 

“That said, our 2026 findings show that many organisations are still constrained by manual processes, fragmented data and limited evidence of training impact.”

While continuous, ongoing training has increased from 53% to 74%, a quarter of organisations still do not formally assess the business impact of compliance training, which Skillscast said limits their ability to demonstrate value to senior stakeholders or justify much-needed investment.

For example, despite significant progress in 2025, more than a third (39%) of organisations still depend on outdated, cheaper tools like email and Excel for compliance data, which slows reporting and delays regulatory responses even as digital capability improves elsewhere in the business.

Budget pressures and a dearth of large-scale investment opportunities are placing more emphasis on high-impact activities, like improving data quality and technology deployments, especially as more firms begin to recognise compliance as a competitive advantage.

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Unsurprisingly, however, given its tendency toward hallucination and bias, the adoption of AI by compliance and training teams remains cautious at best.

Use of AI in training and awareness has increased from 10% to 22%, but more than half of respondents said they still do not use AI for their role, with those working in financial services particularly wary, with 61% reporting no AI use compared to 39% in non-financial services, reflecting greater risk sensitivity in the sector.

“As regulatory expectations continue to rise, particularly around accountability and operational resilience, organisations need to move beyond intention and into execution,” said Dodd.

“That means investing in better data foundations, reinforcing learning throughout the year and ensuring leadership involvement is not just visible, but measurable.”