Businesses can now be assessed and certified for the government-backed Cyber Essentials standard directly through Outbound Group.
Outbound Group has been certified by IASME, the National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) Delivery Partner for Cyber Essentials, as a Certification Body for the scheme. This means Outbound can now assess organisations against the government-backed standard and issue Cyber Essentials certificates in-house, giving our clients a single partner to guide them from the first assessment through to certification.
What Cyber Essentials is
Cyber Essentials is the UK Government’s baseline cyber security standard, built around five core technical controls that protect organisations against the most common internet-based attacks. It’s increasingly a practical requirement that many tenders, cyber insurance policies and supplier onboarding processes now ask for before they’ll do business.
What Certification Body status means
Until now, businesses working towards Cyber Essentials have often had to coordinate between their IT provider, such as Outbound Group, and a separate certification body, which adds steps and hand-offs to what should be a straightforward process. As an approved Certification Body, Outbound Group can now manage the whole journey in-house, helping clients understand the requirements, advising the right controls to have in place, assessing the submission and issuing the certificate.
“Becoming a Certification Body for Cyber Essentials is a natural step for us. Our clients already trust us to keep their systems secure, so being able to take them all the way to certification, without handing them off to someone who doesn’t know their setup, just makes sense. Cyber Essentials is becoming a genuine requirement for winning work and securing cover, and we want to make getting there as straightforward as possible for the businesses we look after.”
This announcement builds on a run of activity that’s put cyber resilience at the centre of Outbound Group’s proposition. In July 2026, the company was among the businesses backing the UK Government’s Cyber Resilience Pledge, launched at 10 Downing Street. One of the pledge’s core actions is encouraging Cyber Essentials certification across supply chains, so gaining the ability to assess and issue that certification directly is a logical progression of the same commitment. It also follows our work helping clients navigate the significant changes introduced in the standard’s latest updates.
Every step of Cyber Essentials certification
Businesses interested in Cyber Essentials certification can speak to the Outbound team about getting started.