ISO 9001:2026 Transition Course - Quality Management Systems

ISO 9001:2026 is here.

Here is what changed, and what it means for your work.

If you already hold a qualification in ISO 9001:2015, you do not need to start over. This course tells you exactly what changed in the 2026 edition, why it changed, and what it means for how you audit, advise, and implement.

ISO 9001:2026 is an evolutionary update, not a rewrite. The quality management system model and the core clause framework stay consistent with 2015. What has moved is the level of clarity and explicit expectation in a handful of areas that matter, and this course walks you through every one of them, clause by clause.

The biggest shifts are the arrival of quality culture and ethical behaviour as explicit requirements, the separation of risks and opportunities into two distinct sets of actions, and reinforced requirements for planning and controlling change. Clause 3 now carries its own terms and definitions, and Annex A has been rebuilt to give clause-specific guidance for Clauses 4 to 10.

This is not an introductory course. It assumes you know ISO 9001:2015 and moves straight to what is different, so you can update your practice without re-covering the fundamentals or interrupting your work.

On successful completion you will be issued with an Exemplar Global Certificate of Attainment (TPECS).

Who is the ISO 9001:2026 Transition Course for?

Built for experienced ISO 9001 practitioners

This course is built for people who already work with ISO 9001 and now have to explain, audit, or implement a revised edition of it. If your qualification says 2015 and your next audit says 2026, this closes that gap. This course is right for you if you are:

• An auditor with ISO 9001:2015 scope: You need to know how the 2026 revision changes the evidence you look for, the questions you ask, and how you assess conformance, clause by clause.
• A QMS consultant or advisor: Your clients are already asking what ISO 9001:2026 means for their system. This gives you the clause-level detail to answer with confidence.
• A quality manager holding an ISO 9001:2015 qualification: You are responsible for the QMS and need to know which requirements changed, which were strengthened, and what that actually triggers.
• An integrated systems professional: You manage ISO 9001 alongside other standards and need a clear picture of how the 2026 revision sits with the rest of your management system scope.

What is included in the ISO 9001:2026 Transition Course?

ISO 9001:2026 keeps the QMS model and clause framework of the 2015 edition. The revision strengthens and clarifies requirements to align with updated ISO management system terms and to make interpretation more consistent. These are the areas where the change is most visible:

• Quality culture and ethical behaviour, introduced as explicit considerations in leadership, awareness, and the environment for the operation of processes
• Risks and opportunities, now separated into distinct requirements with their own actions rather than one combined response
• Planning of changes, with reinforced requirements to implement, monitor, evaluate and review changes to the QMS
• Terms and definitions, now included directly in Clause 3, with ISO 9000 retained as the normative reference
• Annex A, restructured to give clause-specific explanatory guidance for Clauses 4 to 10, and Annex B removed

The course applies five change classifications throughout, so you always know the nature and significance of what you are looking at. These describe how the wording or presentation of the standard changed. They do not by themselves indicate whether new actions are required.

What you'll learn

Thirteen lessons take you from a structured summary of the revision through to clause-level application, with every clause extract in the course highlighting exactly where the 2026 wording differs from 2015, down to single-word changes and relocated text.

• Knowing which changes actually matter
  You start with the full clause-by-clause map of the revision: which clauses changed, how significantly, and which stayed the same. Some of the clauses people assume changed did not, and knowing where not to look saves as much time as knowing where to.

• Quality culture and ethical behaviour as stated requirements
  This is the change most likely to catch experienced practitioners out. Quality culture and ethical behaviour move from an implicit expectation to a stated requirement in several places across the standard, and you will learn exactly where that shows up and what evidence of it looks like in practice.

• Risks and opportunities, pulled apart
  ISO 9001:2015 treated risks and opportunities as one combined action. The 2026 edition separates them into two distinct requirements, and you will learn what that split means for how you plan, evaluate and audit against it.

• Change, and proving you managed it
  Planning for change carries a stronger, more explicit requirement in the 2026 edition. You will learn what that requirement now expects, and how to recognise the evidence that a change has genuinely been managed rather than only announced.

• What changes in the audit itself
  The audit process itself picks up new expectations too, including how audit objectives are set and a shift in how documented information is treated as evidence. You will learn what that means for the questions you ask and the evidence you look for.

For the full lesson-by-lesson breakdown, see the Modules tab above.