Cyber Essentials Greater Manchester
Win the work that now asks for it. Cyber Essentials is the Government-backed certificate a growing share of Greater Manchester contracts, tenders, insurers and buyers require before they'll deal with you — and we get you there without the jargon, fast.
Why Greater Manchester businesses get certified
Most organisations don't pursue Cyber Essentials to feel more secure. They pursue it because work now depends on it. From Manchester's tech and professional services to the region's manufacturing and logistics, Greater Manchester buyers routinely require certification in tenders. The certificate has quietly become a commercial gate, and not holding it costs contracts.
- It unlocks contracts you can't currently bid for. Under the Government's procurement rules (PPN 014), Cyber Essentials is a floor for central-government suppliers handling personal data or providing certain IT services, and defence supply chains build on it. No certificate, no bid.
- It answers the security questionnaire in one line. Larger customers send due-diligence questionnaires before they'll onboard you. A current certificate settles most of it and stops deals stalling in procurement.
- It's increasingly a tender pass/fail question. More buyers now list certification as mandatory rather than desirable, so an uncertified bid is scored out before anyone reads it.
- It lowers the friction on cyber insurance. Insurers increasingly ask for it, and some price or decline cover around it.
- It's a trust mark you can sell with. Display the badge on your site, proposals and email signature: proof, not a promise.
The security benefit is real and worth having. But for most Greater Manchester organisations the honest reason to certify is commercial: they are being blocked from work without it.
Prepared properly, passed first time
We scope it with you, tell you plainly what needs to change, and prepare a clean submission so you pass first time rather than paying to resubmit. You are guided by a Certification Body for both Cyber Essentials and Cyber Assurance, a team that knows exactly what the assessment checks, not an account manager and not a junior with a checklist.
Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus
Cyber Essentials is a verified self-assessment against five technical controls, certified annually. Cyber Essentials Plus covers the same five controls but adds an independent, hands-on technical audit of your systems: the level a growing number of primes and public-sector buyers now specify. We will tell you which one your buyers actually require, rather than pushing the higher tier by default.
What it covers
Five controls that block the great majority of commodity attacks: firewalls, secure configuration, security update management, user access control, and malware protection. Straightforward for most organisations, provided someone tells you honestly what needs changing before you submit.
How it works across Greater Manchester
Certification is largely remote, so being in Greater Manchester does not add travel to your invoice. We agree the scope with you, we help you get the controls in order and support you through the assessment on the IASME portal. Where Cyber Essentials Plus applies, the technical audit is scheduled around you. Turnaround is days rather than weeks when your controls are already in order.
Where it fits
For most Greater Manchester organisations Cyber Essentials is the right first step. Where buyers want evidence of more than the baseline, Cyber Assurance is the next rung and stands in for ISO 27001 at SME cost. If you hold anything genuinely sensitive, test it with a proper penetration test.
Cyber Essentials in Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester has the largest concentration of digital, software and professional services outside London, alongside a substantial manufacturing and logistics base. That mix produces a particular pattern: highly technical organisations that fail on basic device management, because the culture that makes good engineers, autonomy over your own machine and freedom to adopt tools quickly, works directly against centralised control and enforced MFA.
Most organisations here come to Cyber Essentials because somebody else has asked for it: a client contract, a tender, an insurer, or a grant condition. That means there is usually a date attached, and the date is what decides how the work should be sequenced. Where the deadline is tight we start with a gap analysis rather than an application, because a failed submission costs more time than a slow assessment ever will.
What we see most often in Greater Manchester
- Developer and designer machines deliberately kept outside the managed estate
- Cloud tools adopted by individual teams without central identity or MFA
- Fast-growing organisations whose IT was set up for fifteen people and now serves ninety
None of these is unusual and none of them is a reason to put the work off. They are simply the things worth checking before you commit to a date. If you want more detail, see how fast Cyber Essentials really is.
Ready to buy?
Transparent, fixed pricing based on your organisation size. By default we give you access to the IASME portal to complete your Cyber Essentials assessment yourself, and once you submit it we aim to assess within one business day. You can preview the Cyber Essentials self-assessment questions to see where you stand first. There is no call or consultation as standard; we simply send you the questionnaire to complete. Your submission is reviewed by a qualified, certified assessor, never fed into AI. Need it faster? Add urgent turnaround below. Want us to review your setup against the controls before you apply? That is a gap analysis, quoted separately: ask for one using the contact button under the form.
An appointed IASME Certification Body: your certificate comes directly from us. Verify our credentials on the BlockMark registry, and find us listed on the IASME website.
Common questions
Our customers keep asking us for Cyber Essentials. What is it?
A Government-backed certification, run by the NCSC's delivery partner IASME and issued through licensed Certification Bodies. In practice it is the baseline buyers, insurers and public-sector procurement now ask suppliers to hold before they will do business.
Will Cyber Essentials actually win us work in Greater Manchester?
It rarely wins work on its own, but not holding it increasingly loses work: it is a mandatory line in more tenders and supplier questionnaires every year. Think of it as the cost of being allowed to compete, not a marketing extra.
Do we need Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus?
Whatever your buyer specifies. Many contracts accept Cyber Essentials; larger primes, defence supply chains and some public bodies require the audited Plus. We check the actual wording of your requirement rather than pushing the higher tier by default.
How quickly can we be certified?
If your controls are already in order, Cyber Essentials can often be turned around within days. If they are not, we tell you exactly what to fix first. Cyber Essentials Plus adds an audit that has to be scheduled. See our urgent certification page if you are against a deadline.
How do you actually help us get certified?
We scope it with you, tell you plainly what needs to change, help you close the gaps, and, as a Certification Body for both schemes, certify you first time rather than resubmitting.
Cyber Essentials for Greater Manchester organisations
Greater Manchester is the largest digital, software and professional services concentration outside London, with a substantial manufacturing and logistics base alongside it. In practice we mostly meet cloud-first organisations with small physical footprints, where developer and designer machines are routinely excluded from the managed estate because the controls get in the way. The requirement usually arrives via enterprise customer security questionnaires, and investor or acquirer due diligence.
That shapes how a Greater Manchester certification should be sequenced. Where the estate is unmanaged or mixed, the gap analysis is worth more than the urgent turnaround, because the delay will come from remediation rather than from assessment. Where it is already managed and documented, go straight to the questionnaire. Greater Manchester engagements usually run remotely, with an on-site day only where the estate genuinely needs one.
We are an appointed IASME Certification Body, so the assessment and the certificate both come from us. Assessment is within one business day of submission as standard, or the same day with the urgent option where you submit before midday. See how fast Cyber Essentials really is if you are working to a date.
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Understand your exposure
An attacker’s first move is not an attack, it is a look. So we look first, and send you what we find, worst first.
- Services and ports you did not know were open
- Security misconfigurations on anything public facing
- Known vulnerabilities already indexed by engines like Shodan
- Company credentials sitting in known breach data
The only question is: do you know where and how to look?
We reply within one business day. Prefer to talk first? 01902 288763 or info@solusec.co.uk.
Nothing is touched on your systems. It is all public and already indexed, just scattered. We pull it together, which is what an attacker does first.
Turn the requirement into won work
Tell us the contract or buyer asking for Cyber Essentials and your deadline. Scoping is free, and we'll tell you honestly what you need and how fast it's achievable in Greater Manchester.