IASME
IASME is the company that runs the Cyber Essentials scheme on behalf of the NCSC, as its Delivery Partner. It writes the question set, currently Danzell v16.3, operates the Pervade portal where applicants answer it, licenses the Certification Bodies that mark submissions, and sets the scheme fee, which runs from £320 to £600 plus VAT by headcount.
- Term
- IASME
- Also known as
- Delivery Partner, Cyber Essentials Delivery Partner, IASME Consortium
- Category
- Scheme and certification
- Requirement area
- Scheme vocabulary
- Reviewed against
- Requirements v3.3
What does the term IASME mean in Cyber Essentials?
IASME is the company that runs the Cyber Essentials scheme on behalf of the NCSC, as its Delivery Partner.
How does IASME apply to Cyber Essentials?
In plain terms
If the NCSC writes the rules of the game, IASME is the league that runs it. It does not usually mark your answers itself. It licenses Certification Bodies to do that, and it keeps the register of every certificate issued.
Where IASME appears in the scheme
The NCSC's Cyber Essentials Plus test specification refers to "the Cyber Essentials Delivery Partner". That is IASME. The Delivery Partner approves the vulnerability scanning tools, supplies the malware test files, sets the method for calculating sample sizes and decides whether a Plus assessment with a few minor failures can still pass. The 2026 Danzell question set is an IASME document that applicants complete "via the IASME Pervade portal". Two questions ask about IASME directly: A1.13 asks whether IASME and its expert partners can contact you if you suffer a breach, and A1.15 asks whether IASME can contact you for research. Both are about contact, not about your security controls.
IASME also runs its own broader scheme, IASME Cyber Assurance, which adds governance topics on top of the Cyber Essentials controls.
What to check
Make sure your provider is an IASME-licensed Certification Body. To check a supplier, look them up on the certificate register rather than trusting a PDF.
See how to choose a Cyber Essentials provider and how to verify a certificate.
Related terms
- Certification BodyA Certification Body is an organisation licensed by IASME, the NCSC's Delivery Partner, to assess and certify applicants for Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus.
- IASME Cyber AssuranceIASME Cyber Assurance is IASME's own certification scheme for small and medium organisations that covers security governance as well as technical controls.
- Certificate registerThe certificate register is the public online record of Cyber Essentials certificates, where anyone can check whether an organisation is currently certified.
- ISO 27001ISO 27001 is the international standard for running an information security management system, a documented and risk-based way of managing security.
- NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre)The NCSC, or National Cyber Security Centre, is the UK government's cyber security authority and the owner of the Cyber Essentials scheme.
- Organisational dataOrganisational data is any electronic data belonging to your organisation, for example emails, documents, database data and financial data.
Frequently asked questions
IASME is the company that runs the Cyber Essentials scheme on behalf of the NCSC, as its Delivery Partner.
In the 2026 Danzell question set, IASME comes up at A1.13, A1.15. Read those questions against the definition above so your answers use the term the way the assessor will.
Would you pass the 2026 question set?
Answer 24 yes or no questions, built by the assessors who mark Cyber Essentials, and get a readiness score in about five minutes, with any auto-fail questions you miss flagged first in your results.