Compliance Risk Trends 2031-2026
Complexity, scrutiny and accountability are set to grow
What Does Rising Compliance Risk Actually Mean for Your Organisation?
If you are a GRC leader, or senior executive responsible for governance and compliance, you have likely felt the pressure intensifying. Regulatory expectations are higher. Enforcement is more aggressive. And the consequences – financial, reputational, and operational – of getting compliance wrong have never been steeper.
But are those instincts backed by data?
Axiom GRC and VinciWorks, Axiom GRC’s compliance and eLearning specialists, have applied long-term benchmarking methodology across four compliance domains – data protection, anti-money laundering, anti-bribery, and supply chain – to track risk scores from 2010 to 2025 and project them forward to 2031. The findings confirm what many leaders suspect: compliance risk is not plateauing. It is accelerating.
Four key headline findings from the report are below. For the full analysis, risk projections, and practical implications for your organisation, download the complete report: Axiom and VinciWorks: Compliance Risk Trends 2026 – 2031
1. Data protection has seen the most dramatic risk re-rating of any domain
What was once a technical function sits firmly in the boardroom today. Risk scores in data protection rose sharply after 2018 and have continued to climb, driven by escalating enforcement, new legislation, and sustained public concern about how personal data is handled.
Critically, enforcement is no longer concentrated on household names. Regulators are actively pursuing smaller organisations. The full report sets out where risk is projected to move through to 2031 and what demonstrable compliance now looks like.
2. AML risk is becoming more systemic – and static frameworks are a liability
Anti-money laundering compliance risk has remained elevated for over a decade. But its character is shifting. Early enforcement was dominated by headline-grabbing penalties attached to a small number of major institutions. Today’s risk is more broadly distributed, and regulatory expectations have moved significantly.
The report examines the specific areas where the benchmarking data identifies the most significant gaps between regulatory expectation and typical firm practice – and what a living AML framework needs to look like by 2031.
3. Anti-bribery scrutiny is moving from procedures to culture
Having a policy is no longer enough. Regulators and prosecutors are increasingly asking whether procedures are genuinely adequate – and whether the culture and controls behind them actually function in practice.
The introduction of the Failure to Prevent Fraud offence raises the stakes further. The full report covers what the benchmarking data reveals about the direction of enforcement, and what boards need to be asking of their compliance teams now.
4. Supply chain is the fastest-rising risk area in the dataset
Supply chain compliance has seen the sharpest acceleration of any domain since 2020. Legislative direction has shifted from requiring transparency to requiring accountability – and the gap between what organisations can report and what they can evidence is becoming a material risk.
The report sets out the full risk trajectory, the legislative drivers, and what due diligence programmes need to look like to meet the standard now emerging.
Download the Full Report
The five points above are the headline picture. The Compliance Risk Trends 2026-2031 report contains the complete benchmarking methodology, domain-by-domain risk scoring, detailed projections through to 2031, and the practical implications for GRC leaders and boards.
It is the evidence base your organisation needs to make informed decisions about where compliance risk is heading and how to respond.
Compliance Risk Trends 2026-2031 – produced by Axiom GRC and VinciWorks.
Go deeper: Join our webinar on 4 June 2026
Axiom GRC and VinciWorks are hosting a joint webinar to discuss the report’s findings in depth – including what the risk projections mean for GRC strategy, how organisations are adapting their frameworks, and where compliance is heading through to 2030 and beyond.
Compliance in 2030 and beyond: Preparing for the GRC future
📅Thursday 4 June 2026 | 12:00 PM London
Speakers:
- Caspar Bullock, Group Strategy Director, Axiom GRC
- Nick Henderson, Director of Learning and Content, VinciWorks
- Ruth Mittelmann Cohen, Head of Legal Compliance, VinciWorks
Designed for compliance professionals, risk leaders, legal teams, and senior decision-makers.