Cyber risk landscape: Why it’s the #1 concern to UK businesses

Our 2026 UK Business Risk Report, identified cyber as the number one risk. Having been a peripheral risk in the minds of business leaders a few short years ago, cyber has continued a precipitous climb, now standing as the number one risk category facing UK businesses.

Almost half (46%) pointed to cyber risk as a priority risk category, compared with 39% in 2024. It is not hard to understand why, with 2025 having brought a rash of high-profile and highly disruptive cyberattacks affecting UK household names. What’s more, 96% of businesses say they are concerned about at least one cyber risk.

The threat of cybercrime is by far the most serious cyber risk according to business leaders, 44% of whom point to ransomware attacks, phishing, and deepfakes as issues of real concern. It is not hard to understand why, given the scale of attacks we have seen against UK businesses over the last 12 months alone. Indeed, those attacks may also explain why so many businesses see the risk of IT service disruption originating from the supply chain as a serious problem.

Catch up on our cyber risk landscape update

Holly Waszak, Head of Cyber Claims, Marsh UK, provides an update on the UK cyber risk landscape.

UK cyber claims in 2025

Cyber claims among Marsh’s UK clients rose in 2025, driven by a number of different causes - notably a rise in social engineering attacks and digital supply chain flaws that produced endless ripple effects. The year saw a record 668 claims notifications - an 8% increase on 2024 - with the third and fourth quarters accounting for the most activity, continuing the trend of heightened incidents in the latter half of the year. Unlike prior third-quarter spikes tied to single large incidents (for example, CrowdStrike in the third quarter of 2024 and MoveIT in the third quarter of 2023), the 2025 increase reflected multiple, dispersed events. Even a single cyberattack can wreak havoc across a network of partners and threats and the cyber threat landscape evolve unpredictably. This underscores the need for organisations to keep strengthening cyber security controls and incident-response capabilities. Discover more analysis of rising claims, ransomware and social engineering trends, plus practical incident response recommendations, in our UK cyber claims 2025 report.

Expert cyber risk advice and insurance

Cyber risk is well and truly interconnected. Not fully understanding the impact of a cyber event, outside of the protection offered by an insurance product, can have a huge impact to your business. We recommend working with your insurance broker or risk management experts to review your cyber risk preparedness, security controls, any insurance gaps, and your cyber insurability.