SOC 2 Type II is an American certification (AICPA, designed for US-headquartered service organisations) — but UK SaaS vendors selling to US customers, particularly enterprise, increasingly need it. This is the practical UK SaaS guide for achieving SOC 2 Type II.
Why a UK SaaS company needs SOC 2
US enterprise customers + procurement teams increasingly request SOC 2 Type II as table-stakes. Without it, you're excluded from many deals over £50k ARR.
US-based investors + acquirers favour SOC 2-certified targets — meaningful at funding rounds + exit.
UK customers increasingly accept SOC 2 + ISO 27001 interchangeably. Some specifically prefer SOC 2.
Type I vs Type II
Type I — point-in-time assessment. Confirms controls are designed appropriately as of a specific date. Faster + cheaper to achieve.
Type II — period-of-time assessment (typically 6 or 12 months). Confirms controls operated effectively over the period. The gold standard; what most customers expect.
Practical path: achieve Type I first (3-6 months), then Type II 6-12 months later.
The 5 Trust Service Criteria
Security — required for all SOC 2 reports. Common Criteria (CC1-CC9) cover ~100 control points.
Availability — optional. Add if you sell to customers concerned about uptime SLA.
Processing Integrity — optional. Add if you process financial transactions or critical data.
Confidentiality — optional. Add for data-sensitive SaaS.
Privacy — optional. Most UK SaaS already cover Privacy via UK GDPR posture; not always added to SOC 2 scope.
Common UK SaaS implementation
Risk register + treatment plan.
Identity governance — Entra ID or Okta with role-based access, MFA, joiner/mover/leaver process.
Vulnerability management — Tenable, Qualys, or open-source equivalent + monthly patching.
Backup + DR — Veeam or cloud-native + quarterly DR test (see our DR-provider guide).
Logging + monitoring — CloudWatch / Azure Monitor + SIEM (Sentinel or Splunk) + 24/7 alerting.
Vendor management — review of all sub-processors (AWS, Stripe, SendGrid, etc.) with documented assessments. Aligns with DORA Article 30 third-party patterns.
Security awareness training — annual mandatory for all staff.
Incident response plan — documented + tested annually.
What Servnet does
Servnet supports UK SaaS vendors through SOC 2 readiness — gap analysis, controls deployment, evidence pack preparation. We partner with US-based AICPA-licensed CPA firms for the actual report. Many of our SaaS customers also need ISO 27001:2022 for UK + EU sales — the control overlap is significant and we map both together.