Supply Chain Risk Outlook 2026

Headline supply chain risk scores look broadly stable heading into 2026. Underneath, the structure of risk is shifting fast. Forced labour is expanding into markets that top-line ratings would not flag, energy volatility is becoming a labour issue, and financial stress is reaching workers before it shows up as insolvency.

The Supply Chain Risk Outlook 2026 draws on EiQ's proprietary dataset of more than 30,000 onsite audits conducted annually across 100+ countries, combined with continuous supplier incident monitoring. It sets out where risk is concentrating, how pressures are interacting across regions, and what that means for sourcing teams working with limited visibility and fragmented data.

The report profiles key sourcing markets across Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East, pairing audit intelligence with the incidents surfacing in the media, so you can see not just where risk sits, but which way it is moving.

In this report you will discover:

• Why headline ratings are no longer enough to build a strategy on: Italy's overall score reads as Medium, yet its child labour driver fell from 8.96 to 5.27 in a single year. When a driver moves that fast in a market most teams would not be scrutinising, the top-line number hides more than it shows.
• How forced labour risk is expanding beyond traditional hotspots: Recent withhold release orders span seafood, salt, automotive, clothing and coffee supply chains. Exposure is concentrating among migrant, indigenous, disabled and older workers, including in developed markets that rarely attract close scrutiny.
• Where energy volatility is becoming a labour stability issue: In LNG- and LPG-dependent economies, power instability is translating into reduced operating hours, closures and workforce cuts across textiles, ceramics and transport.
• How financial stress reaches workers first: Wage withholding, delayed payments and layoffs typically appear before formal insolvency, giving early-warning signals that audit cycles alone will miss.
• What labour agent reliance signals about forced labour risk: Agent usage runs as high as 80% of suppliers in some markets. Where recruitment fee practices are poorly controlled, heavier reliance raises forced labour exposure.
• Five priority actions for sourcing teams: Practical moves you can make now, regardless of where you are in your programme, from prioritising by exposure and visibility to combining audit and real-time signals.

The environment facing global supply chains is no longer defined by isolated disruption, but by overlapping pressures moving at once across trade, energy, labour and regulatory systems. This report gives sourcing teams the data-led view needed to identify emerging vulnerabilities earlier, prioritise where it counts, and make more resilient decisions.