SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

e2e-assure and A&O Corsaire have formed a cybersecurity partnership aimed at UK organisations that need compliance evidence under domestic jurisdiction.

The arrangement combines e2e-assure’s security operations centre services with A&O Corsaire’s compliance assurance and testing, creating a single audit trail from assessments through to live monitoring and reporting.

The partnership targets sectors under close regulatory scrutiny, including critical national infrastructure, defence and other regulated industries. These organisations often rely on multiple suppliers for penetration testing, remediation, continuous monitoring and compliance reporting, leaving boards, auditors and regulators with fragmented evidence.

All processing and delivery will take place within the UK. The emphasis on sovereignty reflects growing concern among customers in sensitive sectors about where security data is handled, who can access it, and whether suppliers can meet procurement and certification requirements tied to UK jurisdiction.

The agreement comes as businesses prepare for tighter cyber oversight linked to planned resilience rules expected to broaden the scope of critical infrastructure. Companies in affected sectors are under pressure to demonstrate detailed control over security risks across their own operations and supply chains.

Combined model

A&O Corsaire provides penetration testing across web applications, APIs, networks, cloud and mobile environments, alongside hardware and IoT assessments, red team exercises and regulatory compliance reviews. It also works on remediation programmes, including cloud security, identity controls, zero trust architecture and compliance design.

e2e-assure operates a 24/7 UK security operations centre staffed by security-cleared professionals. Its CUMULO software integrates with existing security tools and produces reports mapped to frameworks including CAF, NIST CSF, NIS2 and IEC 62443, according to the companies.

Together, the services are intended to give clients a single evidence trail for regulatory submissions, board risk reporting and third-party audits. The aim is to place assurance work, remediation and operational monitoring within one process rather than assemble them from separate providers.

The issue has become more prominent as boards ask whether their cyber suppliers could themselves create risk. In sectors such as defence and financial services, procurement teams are increasingly examining not just a vendor’s technical service, but also its ownership, operating location and legal exposure.

Rob Domain, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, e2e-assure, said: “A CNI operator managing CAF, NIS2, and ISO 27001 shouldn’t have to stitch together outputs from separate providers and translate them for auditors. The partnership with A&O Corsaire means we can deliver that full stack, from gap assessment and penetration testing through to continuous monitoring and framework-mapped reporting. This shifts the compliance burden away from our client’s team, freeing them up for more impactful work. We’re excited that this is the first time organisations with overlapping, multi-framework obligations will be able to access that full capability from two providers whose delivery models have been explicitly designed to work as one. This will be a game-changer for sectors where compliance failures can result in operational disruption or loss of licence to operate. We’re proud to set a new standard for what a security partnership in a regulated environment should look like.”

Sovereign focus

The emphasis on UK-based operations reflects a wider shift in the cyber market. Buyers in regulated sectors have become more cautious about supply chain exposure, particularly where providers rely on offshore operations or cannot guarantee that client data remains under UK legal and regulatory oversight.

A&O Corsaire said its assurance practice is designed to feed findings into remediation and detection engineering, creating what it describes as a closed-loop approach. It also pointed to its CREST accreditation and long-standing work in cyber assurance and transformation.

For e2e-assure, the partnership broadens its offer beyond monitoring and detection into a fuller compliance package. For A&O Corsaire, it adds an operational security layer to support ongoing evidence gathering rather than point-in-time testing alone.

Tom McDowall, General Manager, A&O Corsaire, said: “Sovereign operations have moved from a procurement preference to a material risk question. Boards in financial services, CNI, and defence supply chains are now asking whether their security partners could themselves be a vector, and a partner that can’t answer that cleanly is a liability, not an asset. That’s the market reality this partnership was built to address. The regulatory direction of travel is unambiguous. As the UK’s NIS2-aligned legislation takes shape and procurement scrutiny of the entire security supply chain intensifies, the organisations that have already established sovereign, end-to-end security programmes will be ahead of requirements that others are still scrambling to meet. What we can now offer the market is a complete answer to that question, one that is auditable, accredited, and built entirely within the UK.”

JOSEPH GABRIEL LAGONSIN

News Editor

Tesco Mobile has completed 65 network upgrades across Greater Manchester, covering more than 14,000 postcodes.

Carried out throughout 2025, the upgrades are intended to improve mobile speeds, coverage and reliability. The work spans Manchester city centre and surrounding areas including Bolton, Wigan, Rochdale, Oldham and Bury.

The move comes as mobile operators face rising demand for dependable connections in dense urban areas, transport networks and large public venues. Greater Manchester is one of the UK’s largest city regions, with heavy daily demand from commuters, shoppers, businesses and sports fans.

Tesco Mobile, which uses O2’s network, said customers should see better service in busy shopping districts, transport hubs, live events and on matchdays. The work is also expected to improve performance during peak travel periods and better support people working while travelling or away from fixed broadband.

Alongside the local upgrades, Virgin Media O2 has been deploying newer network technology to direct extra capacity to the busiest locations. The group has also been using small cells in dense urban areas to strengthen coverage in city-centre hotspots and around transport interchanges.

The Greater Manchester programme forms part of a wider effort to improve connectivity in the UK locations where network demand is highest, including railway lines, motorways, airports, stadiums and arenas.

Research cited by Tesco Mobile points to persistent consumer frustration with patchy mobile service. Nearly 80% of people surveyed said they had experienced a call dropping mid-conversation because of a poor connection, while 35% said more reliable connectivity in busy areas was among the most valuable benefits of network upgrades.

Regional demand

For businesses in Greater Manchester, mobile coverage affects day-to-day operations beyond calls and messaging. Retailers and hospitality venues increasingly rely on mobile data for payments, bookings and staff communications, while mobile workers need stable access to cloud-based tools and customer systems when travelling between sites.

Improved performance in town centres and transport corridors may also matter for small and medium-sized businesses that depend on uninterrupted service during trading hours. In high-footfall areas, capacity constraints can quickly lead to slower speeds and unreliable connections, particularly during large events or commuter peaks.

Tesco Mobile positioned the upgrades as a response to those pressures, focusing on areas where mobile traffic is concentrated. Manchester city centre, regional town centres and key transport routes all tend to experience sharp swings in usage throughout the day.

Laura Joseph, Chief Customer Officer at Tesco Mobile, said: “We know our customers expect fast, reliable connectivity wherever they are. These upgrades across Greater Manchester help us deliver exactly that – stronger coverage, better performance in busy areas and a more consistent experience day to day. Powered by O2, we’re continuing to invest where it matters most to keep our customers connected.”

The expansion reflects a wider industry push to improve service quality in urban areas, where population growth and mobile data consumption are rising together. Operators have increasingly focused investment on places where large numbers of users gather and where service issues are most visible.

Greater Manchester has been a particular focus for telecoms investment because of its scale, economic activity and transport links. The city region includes major retail centres, large sports venues and busy commuter routes, all of which put pressure on network performance at different times of day.

For Tesco Mobile customers in the area, the effect of the work will be measured less by technical specifications than by whether calls connect, messages send without delay and data services hold up in crowded locations. The company’s survey suggests those basics remain a concern for many mobile users.

The upgrades cover a broad spread of postcodes across the conurbation, suggesting an effort that extends beyond the city centre into surrounding towns. That matters in a region where travel between boroughs is routine and service continuity can vary sharply from one district to another.

As operators continue adding capacity and filling coverage gaps, pressure to show tangible improvements in everyday service is unlikely to ease. In high-density markets such as Greater Manchester, customer expectations are shaped by whether mobile connections remain stable when they are needed most.

KAREN JOY BACUDO

Finance Editor

UK fintech vacancies are forecast to rise by close to 14% in 2026, according to research by Morgan McKinley and Vacancysoft, led by payments infrastructure, engineering and anti-money laundering roles.

The findings suggest recruitment is shifting away from consumer neobanks and towards more operational and compliance-focused parts of the sector. Vacancies rose 28% in 2025, and early May data showed first-quarter hiring was running more than 13% above the same period a year earlier.

London is expected to remain the centre of demand, accounting for 71% of all fintech hiring. Vacancies in the capital are projected to rise 18%, compared with growth of less than 1% elsewhere in Britain.

The sector appears to be entering a more selective phase, with firms focusing on engineering, infrastructure, compliance and payments rather than broad-based expansion. That marks a shift from the rapid hiring seen at consumer-focused fintech businesses in recent years.

Compliance shift

Within compliance and banking functions, the picture is mixed. Legal, Risk & Compliance vacancies are forecast to fall 4% in 2026 after rising by close to 22% in 2025, while banking-related hiring is expected to decline by 8%.

At the same time, some specialist roles are expanding quickly. AML risk and compliance vacancies are projected to rise 28%, while Credit Analyst hiring is forecast to increase by nearly 46%.

The report linked that trend to greater regulatory scrutiny of digital lending, payments and stablecoins. It also said hiring in financial crime and credit risk is expected to ease after unusually strong growth in 2025.

Technology roles

Technology remains the biggest driver of hiring across fintech. IT vacancies are forecast to rise by more than 13% in 2026, with London absorbing most of that demand.

IT infrastructure roles are expected to record the fastest growth among major technology functions, climbing by close to 31%. IT development and engineering vacancies are forecast to increase by nearly 19%.

By contrast, IT support roles continue to lose ground. Their share of fintech vacancies has fallen from 17% to 9% over two years, as automation, outsourcing and cloud-based systems reduce demand for traditional support work.

Neobanks slow

Company data in the report suggests payments firms and SME-focused platforms are gaining ground on consumer neobanks in hiring. Several neobanks are now moderating recruitment after years of rapid expansion.

Radius is forecast to increase hiring by more than 42%, while SumUp Payments is projected to increase vacancies by nearly 28%. Ebury is expected to post a 32.1% increase, while Wise is forecast to grow hiring by 14.6%.

Crypto-linked businesses are also expanding. Payward, the operator of Kraken, is forecast to increase vacancies by nearly 91% as firms prepare for the Financial Conduct Authority’s evolving cryptoasset framework.

By contrast, Starling Bank and Monzo are both projected to reduce hiring in 2026. The pullback underscores a broader shift across the sector, as recruitment moves from customer growth and product roll-out towards infrastructure, controls and specialist operations.

“The UK fintech sector is entering a more disciplined and structurally selective phase of growth. This is not a slowdown in momentum, but a reorientation of where growth is occurring. Growth is increasingly concentrated in IT infrastructure and engineering roles, as firms prioritise resilience, scalability and cloud-native architecture over pure product expansion. Most significantly, the centre of gravity within fintech is shifting. Payment infrastructure providers and SME-focused platforms are now outpacing consumer neobanks, many of which are beginning to moderate hiring after years of rapid expansion,” Mark Astbury, Director of Project & Change Recruitment at Morgan McKinley, said.