SOC 2 compliance software for UK and EU teams, and ISO 27001 too

Does SOC 2 apply to the UK?

No. SOC 2 is an American Institute of CPAs attestation standard, not a UK or EU regulation, and no UK law requires it. What makes it relevant here is entirely commercial. A UK or EU SaaS company selling into the US runs into a security questionnaire, a procurement checklist, or a direct request for a current SOC 2 Type 2 report, usually from a mid-market or enterprise American buyer that will not sign without one.

European buyers ask for something different more often. ISO 27001, an information-security management system standard, is the certificate a German, French or other EU enterprise customer is more likely to name in its own supplier-assurance process. Some also ask about Germany’s C5 catalogue specifically, which is covered on its own below. The scope you need is set by who is actually asking and the systems that handle their data, not by a platform vendor’s framework menu.

SOC 2 or ISO 27001 first: how UK and EU teams actually sequence it

The order is usually decided by whichever deal is closing first, not by a roadmap. Before booking a platform demo, write down the legal entity being assessed, the products and systems in scope, the target date, and the exact customer language that triggered the request. A US enterprise buyer waiting on procurement wants a SOC 2 Type 2 report. A European buyer running its own supplier-assurance process may accept an ISO 27001 certificate instead.

The two frameworks share real control overlap. Access management, encryption, change management, logging, incident response and written security policy all inform both. What differs is the assessment itself. SOC 2 produces an independent CPA firm’s attestation report over a period of time; ISO 27001 produces a certificate issued by an accredited certification body after a management-system audit. A platform can help you collect the evidence once and reuse it across both, but it cannot decide which systems belong in scope, operate a control for you, or issue either document.

Ask your prospective auditor or certification body whether they can work from the platform’s evidence exports before you commit to one. That single question avoids the common failure: buying automation for systems that are out of scope while missing the manually operated controls an assessor will still test by hand.

What actually differs for a UK or EU buyer

Currency is the first thing to check and the easiest to miss. None of the five platforms in the table publishes a pound or euro rate card. Comp AI is quote-only; every numeric price we have confirmed for the other four is in US dollars. Ask for the quote in your own currency and confirm how VAT is handled before signing, rather than assuming the dollar figure is the final number.

Data residency is worth asking about directly rather than trusting the word "EU" on a vendor page. We could confirm a specific region for exactly one of the five: Secureframe’s advertised EU data centre runs on AWS eu-west-2, which is London, in the UK, not the EU. Comp AI offers a documented self-hosted path, but that is not the same as a confirmed managed-service region. We found no equivalent managed-region detail for Comp AI, Scytale, Drata or Vanta, which makes it unverified rather than confirmed. Ask for the specific region, not the word EU.

GDPR mapping is the one area where all five agree, and each lists it in its own framework coverage. Support hours by region and a named UK or EU auditor network are things our dataset does not carry for any of the five. If either matters to your team, get it in writing during the sales call rather than assuming it.

The shortlist: Comp AI, Scytale, Drata, Vanta and Secureframe

The table above lists every core platform with an ISO 27001 claim, which is close to our entire core roster. These five are the ones our dataset holds enough sourced UK and EU detail on to compare directly.

Comp AI fits an engineering-led UK or EU team that values inspectable code or wants the option to self-host. Its registry record lists ISO 27001, GDPR, ISO 42001 and NEN 7510, with controls mapped across frameworks rather than confirmed native per framework. The repository catalogue contains 590 integrations, and the managed offer includes 1:1 expert support. Buyers should confirm the Enterprise Edition boundary, managed-service region, GDPR depth, and exact auditor access before treating self-hosting or a framework name as proof of fit.

Scytale is the strongest starting point for a team without a dedicated compliance lead when the chosen package includes expert support. Our registry has individually source-checked pages for SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, SOX ITGC and C5, the last listed but not independently verified. Scytale confirmed 150+ as its current integration figure on 2026-08-11 and said older assets may show different totals because they are not updated simultaneously. Buyers should still verify the exact connectors they need. Its defining difference is the option to buy a named compliance expert with the platform, which matters when the hard part is not connecting AWS but deciding which controls are proportionate to your product.

Drata suits a team that already has someone accountable for compliance and wants to reuse one control program across frameworks. Our registry lists more than 300 integrations alongside SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, CMMC, NIS2 and DORA, the last two being EU-originated regulations. Its controls are shared and cross-mapped rather than confirmed fully native per framework. Drata documents SCIM-fed group-to-role synchronization, but not the full user-account creation and deactivation lifecycle.

Vanta is the practical choice when the immediate constraint is evidence scattered across a long SaaS stack. Its 400-integration catalogue is the largest among the established managed platforms in this shortlist, and its registry entry lists SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR and ISO 42001. Like Drata, its multi-framework support is built on documented cross-mapping rather than confirmed native control sets per framework. Vanta documents SCIM account lifecycle provisioning but says it may require an upgrade or add-on.

Secureframe is the pick for a team already running, or about to run, two or more frameworks at once, and its registry entry describes hands-on compliance-expert support built around that case. It is also the one platform here with a sourced UK and EU data-residency caveat: its advertised EU data centre is AWS eu-west-2 in London, not the EU. SSO and SCIM are both gated to its Complete tier and above, so the entry plan has neither.

Who audits you

None of the five platforms above is a CPA firm or an ISO certification body. Scytale, Drata and Secureframe each connect customers to an external, independent CPA firm through their own partner or audit-alliance program, and Vanta gives an added auditor scoped access inside the platform. Comp AI documents an auditor role, bulk evidence export and finding workflows, but we have not independently tested the exact workspace scope. In every case the report or certificate is issued by a separate, accredited third party, not by the software vendor.

One platform in our wider registry does both jobs. Thoropass runs the audit itself through Laika Compliance, LLC, a legally separate CPA entity that passed its most recent AICPA peer review with a rating of pass, accepted 12 December 2025, and it is also the one platform we found with a named Cyber Essentials claim, the UK government-backed scheme. It sits outside the shortlist above because that shortlist answers a platform question and our dataset carries less sourced UK and EU detail on Thoropass than on those four, not because bundling disqualifies it. Note also that the bundle is not the only way in: Thoropass states its audit platform works with any GRC platform, so a UK team can keep the software it already runs and engage Thoropass Assurance as the auditor.

For the audit itself you still need a licensed firm. Our UK and Germany auditor listings, linked below, cover CPA firms actually doing this work in those markets, and every one of them is independent of every platform on this page.

How much does SOC 2 cost in the UK, in pounds and euros

The honest answer is that none of the five platforms publishes a rate card in pounds or euros. Comp AI is quote-only with no current numeric rate card. Every figure we hold for the other four is in US dollars: Scytale has a public AWS Marketplace floor of $7,500 a year for the platform plus one framework; Drata was observed between $9,649 and $60,000 with a median of $24,869; Vanta between $7,500 and $56,781 with a median of $20,000; and Secureframe between $7,500 and $80,000, with $25,000 to $35,000 reported for a typical mid-market two-framework deal. Scytale’s number is a seller-listed floor; the others are observed contract data. All five still require a written quote for the buyer’s scope.

The audit or certification fee sits on top of the platform fee and is a separate line item in every case. None of our sources gives a pound or euro figure for either the platform or the audit, so budget in dollars and convert, or push your sales contact for a number in your own currency before you sign.

Germany and the DACH market: C5:2026 and the EU AI Act

C5 deserves its own line in any German or DACH discovery call, because it is not a SOC 2 or ISO 27001 label. It is the German Federal Office for Information Security’s Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalogue, and the BSI published a substantial revision, C5:2026, in April 2026, the first major update since C5:2020. It adds criteria for container management, supply-chain security, post-quantum cryptography and confidential computing, and restructures the catalogue into a more granular, machine-readable format. Several sources report a compliance runway to 1 June 2027 before it becomes fully binding for existing assessments. Confirm the exact transition date with your assessor rather than assuming either extreme.

The EU AI Act runs on a separate clock that lands close to the same window. It entered into force in August 2024, banned a set of prohibited AI uses from 2 February 2025, applied general-purpose AI model obligations from 2 August 2025, and reaches general application, including most high-risk AI system obligations, on 2 August 2026. Neither SOC 2 nor ISO 27001 satisfies the AI Act by itself. If your team also builds or embeds AI features, our companion guide to SOC 2 and ISO 42001 for AI startups, linked below, covers how that requirement interacts with this same buying decision.

If a German customer mentions C5, ask whether they mean an attestation, supplier evidence, a cloud-provider assurance report or a contractual statement, and which catalogue version. The answer changes the scope of the work and may involve your cloud provider as well as your own control environment. Of the five platforms in the shortlist, only Scytale currently lists C5 as a named framework, and it is listed rather than independently verified, so confirm the actual control depth before assuming it covers your specific requirement.