The Measure of Cleared Program Readiness is Incomplete Without You
√ Benchmark your own organization against peers
√ Shine a light on what’s working, what’s not
√ Highlight the realities you face every day
√ Bring visibility to shared obstacles and concerns
√ Surface industry-wide insights and challenges
National Security Institute’s
National Security Institute’s
2026 State of Cleared Industry Program Readiness
Benchmarking Operational Realities Across Cleared Industry
Participation is Secure, Protected, Anonymous.
Who Should Participate?
Facility Security Officers, PSOs and program support
Directors of Security and Enterprise Security Leaders
Self-inspection, CAP, compliance owners
Leaders responsible for security performance
The Measure of Cleared Program
Readiness Isn't Complete Without You
Shine a light on what's working and what the obstacles are
Surface industry-wide insights & Benchmark yourself against peers
Highlight the realities you face every day
What Areas Are Covered?
Execution and Security Operations—Together in One View.
• Core Security Operations & Obligations
• Readiness, Evidence & Inspection Resilience
• Enterprise-Level Risk, Coordination & Scale Challenges
Core Security
Operations & Obligations
What’s currently required to run a compliant, disciplined, inspection-ready security program day to day.
1. Personnel Security, Eligibility & Visit Control
• Real operational delays
• Internal vs external drivers
• Evidence readiness
• Predictability & ownership clarity …and more
2. CUI Execution, Marking & Handling
• Employee struggles
• Tool/process confidence
• Evidence requests
• Practical enablers & barriers …and more
3. Training, Reinforcement & Behavioral Follow-Through
• Effectiveness of required training components
• Reinforcement cadence & architecture
• PM involvement
• Where behavior breaks down …and more
4. Subcontractors & Flow-Down Obligations
• Flow-down clarity
• Subcontractor onboarding & compliance
• CUI/cyber execution in the supply chain
• Evidence reliability …and more
Readiness, Evidence &
Inspection Resilience
What determines whether an organization can prove it is compliant, disciplined, and consistently in control — all year long.
5. Self-Inspections, CAPs & Local Readiness
• Predictiveness vs external results
• Verification & closure reliability
• Evidence posture
• Pain, pressure, and where the model breaks …and more
6. Enterprise Readiness Loops & Governance Rhythms
• Cross-site consistency
• CAP management at scale
• Evidence repositories & dashboards
• Leadership visibility & trust in the data …and more
7. Enterprise Evidence Model & Inspection Readiness
• Documentation quality
• Consistency across sites
• Pre-inspection posture
• Ability to support short-notice deep reviews …and more
8. Oversight Data, Metrics & Digital Tools
• Definition and standardization of metrics
• Source-of-truth systems
• Dashboard reliability
• Integration with HR/IT/PM data flows …and more
Enterprise-Level Risk, Coordination & Scale Challenges
What breaks when organizations grow — and what leaders see working and not working to address the challenges.
9. Cross-Functional Workflows & Shared Load
• HR, IT, PM, Ops follow-through
• JML/IAM alignment
• Evidence dependencies
• Where execution fails under pressure …and more
10. Security Team Structure, Capacity & Sustainability
• Single points of failure
• Workload distribution
• Multi-site/program coverage
• 2–3 year sustainability outlook …and more
11. Trusted Workforce / SEAD-3 Program at Scale
• Reporting culture strength
• Case-handling capacity
• Cross-functional integration
• Consistency across sites/programs …and more
12. Insider Threat & Insider Risk Integration
• CV, HR, Cyber, PM coordination
• Signal integration
• Case workflow maturity
• Enterprise governance …and more
13. Multi-Site Governance & Security Consistency
• Minimum standards
• Oversight rhythms
• Cross-site visibility
• Where variation becomes risk …and more
Confidentiality & Data Handling
Participation is Secure, Protected, Anonymous.
This NSI benchmark report illuminates industry-wide patterns—not individual organizations. Your responses are combined into anonymized data sets, ensuring nothing can be traced back to you or your company. Your honesty is essential, and we protect it fully.
• All responses are confidential
• Data will be aggregated and anonymized
• Individual organizations are not identified in any form
• Individual respondents are not identified in any form