The Short Read
- The Women in Security Survey 2026 received 730 responses from India’s security ecosystem.
- 96.8% of respondents said more opportunities should be created for women in security functions.
- 84.5% said women remain underrepresented across security roles.
- 74% had experienced or witnessed gender-based discrimination in a security workplace.
- 45.2% chose mentorship as the most effective way to improve women’s participation and advancement.
- The survey suggests that the sector has moved past awareness. The next challenges are accountability, progression, and women’s visibility in leadership.
The number is almost unanimous
The Women in Security Survey 2026 opens with a figure that should make the industry take notice: 96.8% of security professionals believe more opportunities should be created for women. That is as close to consensus as a sector gets.
The survey, conducted by IIRIS Consulting and the CII Centre for Women Leadership, received 730 responses from across India’s security ecosystem. The respondent base covered physical security, corporate security, cybersecurity, risk management, business continuity, resilience, intelligence and investigations, fraud and financial crime, compliance and governance, forensics, crisis management, public safety, law enforcement, defence and national security.
WISS 2026 findings matter because security has long carried a narrow public image. The word still makes many people think of guards, gates, weapons, uniforms, patrols and physical force.
The modern security industry is far wider. It includes cyber forensics, fraud detection, intelligence analysis, risk consulting, crisis management, business resilience, compliance, investigative work, threat assessment, public safety planning and national-security-linked roles.
That expansion should have created a broader entry point for women. The survey suggests professionals agree. The opportunity is evident, but the pipeline remains uneven.
A male-majority survey still backed women’s inclusion
One important detail makes the 96.8% figure even more interesting.
The survey was not a women-only view of the security sector. According to the reported sample profile, 72.3% of respondents were men, 27.5% were women, while smaller shares identified as non-binary, preferred not to say or other.
That means the call for more opportunities is coming from a male-majority respondent base. This weakens the usual excuse that gender inclusion in security is a concern raised only by women or DEI teams. The industry itself appears to recognise the gap.
The same report found 90.3% support for an industry-wide gender parity pledge. It also reported the adoption of formal DEI policies, flexible work arrangements, and unconscious bias training across many organisations.
On paper, that sounds encouraging. The trouble begins when the paper meets the workplace.
Policies exist. Outcomes are still lagging.
The survey’s central warning is an accountability gap.
A large share of respondents report that policies and inclusion frameworks exist. Yet 84.5% still believe women remain underrepresented across security functions. Even more sharply, 74% of professionals have personally experienced or witnessed gender-based discrimination in a security workplace.
That is where the sector must look beyond announcements. A DEI policy can exist while women remain absent from night-shift planning, field assignments, incident-command roles, intelligence leadership, cyber leadership, crisis rooms or senior decision-making posts.
A flexible work policy can exist while managers quietly assume women cannot handle operational pressure. Bias training can exist while stereotypes continue to shape who is seen as “fit” for security work.
The survey shows that awareness has grown. The next stage needs proof of movement.
Why underrepresentation is still the core issue
Security is a field where visibility shapes credibility.
A person becomes trusted in security by being seen handling pressure, leading response, assessing risk, controlling sensitive information, managing teams and making difficult calls in uncertain situations.
If women are missing from those assignments early, the leadership gap becomes predictable later. That is why the finding on underrepresentation matters more than it may appear. It is not only about the number of women entering the sector. It is about where women are placed after entry.
- Are they in field roles or only support functions?
- Are they in cyber operations or only documentation?
- Are they part of investigations or only coordination?
- Are they visible in command rooms?
- Are they considered for leadership after proving their capability?
- Are they protected from everyday discrimination when they enter male-heavy teams?
India has already seen examples of women entering elite security and command roles. The presence of women CISF officers in leadership roles and female commandos in SPG has challenged older assumptions about who belongs in high-stakes security work.
The WISS 2026 findings show that the wider industry has to catch up with that reality.
Mentorship emerged as the biggest ask
When respondents were asked what would most improve women’s participation and advancement, 45.2% selected mentorship. That is telling.
Recruitment alone cannot solve a sector where women may enter but fail to progress. Mentorship helps women understand the informal rules of the field:
- Which certifications matter
- Which roles carry future value
- How to build credibility
- How to handle difficult teams
- How to move from support into strategy
- How to get noticed for leadership
- And how to survive workplace cultures that were not built with them in mind.
Security careers often depend on networks. People recommend trusted names for sensitive roles. They pull known talent into crisis-response teams. They pass on intelligence about openings, assignments, training and promotions.
Women excluded from those networks lose more than friendship. They lose career information. A strong mentorship structure can change that. It can help women remain in the sector long enough to lead it.
Culture is still the real barrier
The survey identified stereotypes and male-dominated workplace cultures as the primary deterrent to women entering security careers, with 39.7% citing it as the biggest barrier. That is where the industry needs a more honest vocabulary.
The barrier may appear as a joke about women being too soft for security. It may appear as a concern about safety while travelling or during night duty. Sometimes it may seem like an assumption that women are better suited to compliance, HR-facing security, training, or back-end monitoring than to high-pressure operations. It may appear as fewer women being recommended for rougher, riskier or more visible assignments.
Some assumptions are presented as protection. Many become exclusion. For example, a woman cannot build operational credibility if every serious assignment is filtered through someone else’s doubt.
The sector should be careful here. Security is about judgement, discipline, observation, decision-making, preparation and response. Physical strength may matter in some roles, but it is far from the only measure of security capability.
As security expands into cyber, intelligence, fraud, compliance, forensics, resilience and crisis management, the old image of who belongs becomes even less useful.
Women in Security Survey 2026: The business case
Let us not consider it as a mere representation story.
Companies face sharper security challenges today: cyber threats, data breaches, fraud, geopolitical risks, supply chain disruptions, workplace violence, misinformation, crisis events, regulatory pressure, reputational risks, and employee safety concerns.
A security function with narrow talent pipelines will struggle to meet that complexity. Women bring talent, perspective, and capability to a field that needs more people who can assess risk from different angles. Diverse teams are often better at noticing overlooked vulnerabilities, understanding varied employee realities and designing response systems that work for more people.
There is another point businesses should not miss. Many organisations are trying to improve women’s participation in the workforce and leadership. If the security function remains male-heavy, it affects how women experience the workplace itself: movement, travel, reporting, safety, emergency response, investigations and trust.
A workplace cannot claim to value women’s safety while keeping women at the margins of the teams that design and deliver that safety.
What needs to change now
The WISS 2026 findings point to a clear direction.
- First, companies need to measure women’s representation across security functions by level and role. Entry-level presence is useful, but leadership representation is what changes the future.
- Second, mentorship should become structured. Women need access to senior security leaders, not only general career advice.
- Third, organisations should give women high-visibility assignments. Risk rooms, investigations, cyber operations, crisis simulations, site-security reviews, intelligence analysis, and resilience planning should deliberately include women.
- Fourth, hiring language needs review. Job descriptions that overemphasise physical toughness, travel assumptions or military-style stereotypes may discourage capable women from applying.
- Fifth, managers should be held accountable for team culture. A male-dominated function can remain respectful and inclusive if leadership treats behaviour as seriously as technical competence.
- Sixth, the industry needs more women role models in public view. Women in CISF, SPG, cyber forensics, corporate risk, investigations and security leadership should be seen more often by younger professionals.
- Seventh, the gender parity pledge, supported by 90.3% of respondents, should translate into measurable commitments. These commitments are targets, leadership development, retention metrics, promotion data, and public progress reporting.
The larger signal from WISS 2026
The Women in Security Survey 2026 shows a sector standing between intention and change. The intention is strong. Nearly 97% want more opportunities for women. More than 90% support a gender parity pledge. Many organisations already report policy frameworks.
The change is still incomplete. Women remain underrepresented. Discrimination is still being experienced or witnessed. Mentorship is still missing for many. Male-dominated culture still shapes entry and progression.
This is the moment where leadership matters. Security is built on preparation. The industry understands threat mapping, readiness, risk assessment and response planning better than most sectors.
It can apply the same discipline to gender inclusion.
- Where are women entering?
- Where are they dropping off?
- Which assignments are they missing?
- Who mentors them?
- Who sponsors them?
- Who leads them?
- Who blocks them?
- Who measures progress?
Those questions are not soft. They are operational.
Change in Content View on the Women in Security Survey
The WISS 2026 findings should push India’s security sector to widen its idea of strength.
Strength can be physical. It can also be analytical, strategic, technological, investigative, ethical and calm under pressure. Women belong across that full spectrum.
The survey makes one thing clear: the sector has enough awareness. It now needs systems that turn agreement into advancement.
More women must enter security. A bigger number of women must stay. Many more women must move into command, cyber, investigations, risk, resilience and leadership. And we must mentor more women before they are expected to prove themselves on their own.
The numbers are strong enough to start a conversation. The industry now has to build the evidence that it listened.
FAQs
Q: What is the Women in Security Survey 2026?
A: The Women in Security Survey 2026 is a survey conducted by IIRIS Consulting and the CII Centre for Women Leadership, covering India’s security ecosystem across physical security, cybersecurity, risk, investigations, compliance, public safety and related functions.
Q: What was the biggest finding of the survey?
A: The survey found that 96.8% of respondents believe more opportunities should be created for women in security functions.
Q: What does the survey say about women’s representation?
A: The survey found that 84.5% of respondents believe women remain underrepresented across security functions.
Q: What intervention did respondents prioritise?
A: Mentorship was ranked as the most effective intervention, with 45.2% of respondents selecting it as the top measure to improve women’s participation and advancement.
Editorial Note and Sources
This article is based on publicly available reporting on the Women in Security Survey 2026 by IIRIS Consulting and the CII Centre for Women Leadership. It is written as a DEI Insights news explainer for Change in Content, with an emphasis on what the survey findings mean for women’s participation, progression and leadership in India’s security sector.
